Smile Books in Order

The Smile page is really the hub for Raina Telgemeier's autobiographical books about growing up, plus a few companion titles that invite readers to reflect on their own stories. The core run is Smile, Sisters, and Guts. They are connected by the same family, the same San Francisco backdrop, and the same plainspoken honesty about how weird it can feel to be a kid in your own body.

Smile is the doorway book for most readers. It starts with a dental accident and follows years of braces, surgeries, changing friendships, crushes, and self-consciousness. The stakes are intensely middle school, which is exactly why the book works. Telgemeier understands that a headgear appointment or a lunch-table disaster can feel as dramatic as any fantasy battle. She treats those moments seriously, but not heavily, and the humor keeps the pages moving.

From there, Sisters shifts the focus from teeth to family. It follows Raina's complicated relationship with her younger sister Amara, especially during a road trip from San Francisco to Colorado. The tension is not a mystery or a villain. It is the slow grind of sibling irritation, changing family dynamics, and the uneasy feeling that adults are keeping something from you. That makes the book feel very close to real life, because it is.

Then Guts goes backward in time. Although it was published later, it takes place earlier, when Raina is in fourth grade and struggling with anxiety that shows up as stomach trouble and fear around food, school, and getting sick. Read together, the three memoirs form a loose portrait of childhood from several angles: embarrassment, worry, jealousy, love, anger, and the work of figuring out who you are.

Small moments, big feelings.

What readers often respond to most is the tone. These books are funny without dismissing pain, and kind without pretending everything gets solved neatly. Telgemeier is very good at drawing the split-second face a kid makes when a joke goes wrong or a friend becomes mean. Her San Francisco setting also matters. Earthquakes, long drives, school hallways, family apartments, and neighborhood details make the memoirs feel specific rather than generic.

This page also reaches into the companion books that grew out of that world. Share Your Smile turns Telgemeier's memoir approach outward, encouraging kids to journal, brainstorm, and make comics of their own. My Smile Diary is a lighter prompted journal for recording thoughts and feelings. Facing Feelings steps even farther back and looks at Telgemeier's art, influences, and process from a behind-the-scenes angle.

So while Smile began as one story about dental drama, the books around it have become something larger: a connected shelf of graphic memoirs and creative companions. If you want Raina Telgemeier at her most personal, this is the place to start. Expect school stress, sibling friction, awkward growth spurts, and the relief of realizing somebody else once felt that exact same way.