Maizon Books in Order

The Maizon books are a coming-of-age trilogy built around friendship, ambition, and the pull between home and elsewhere. The series begins in Bushwick, Brooklyn, with Maizon and her best friend Margaret in Last Summer with Maizon. They are close, funny together, and used to knowing the shape of each other's days.

Then change starts coming fast. Margaret is grieving her father's death. Maizon has been accepted to a boarding school in Connecticut. What follows is not just a school story, but a story about what it means when one friend leaves and both girls have to grow in different directions.

Growing up is the real plot here.

In Maizon at Blue Hill, Maizon is suddenly one of the few Black girls at a mostly white boarding school. She is homesick, angry, observant, and very aware of the ways class and race shape the place around her. Woodson does not make that experience neat or easy. Maizon wants opportunity, but she also wants to feel like herself.

Between Madison and Palmetto brings her back to Brooklyn, where returning turns out to be its own challenge. Home is not frozen in time. Friendships shift. Old streets feel familiar, but not untouched. The trilogy keeps asking whether you can leave home, change, and still find your way back to the people and places that made you.

What readers can expect from this series is a grounded, thoughtful look at Black girlhood, education, class, and loyalty. The books are not driven by cliffhangers. They move through voice, neighborhood detail, and the emotional truth of friendship under strain. If you like character-first stories that take young lives seriously, the Maizon books are a strong place to start.