- Contemporary
- Sheets collection
- Ages 9–14
Sheets
Part of the collectionSheets→Three connected graphic novels about grief, invisibility and friendship, growing more emotionally searching with each volume before closing on gentle, hard-won healing.
- Books3 / 3
- Arcs1
- Span2018–2023
- StatusComplete
The series
At a glance.
Brenna Thummler's three-book graphic novel series is a continuous story following Marjorie Glatt, her grieving father's failing laundrette, and Wendell, the misfit ghost drawn into her world. Book one blends realistic family grief with soft supernatural charm; book two widens the lens to Eliza, an isolated, bullied girl for whom disappearing starts to look like escape; the finale turns toward Wendell's own past and the healing all three characters need. Thummler works largely in emotion rather than plot, using colour, light and empty space to carry feeling. The result is gentle in register but genuinely substantial, and it grows more mature and more searching as the trilogy proceeds, ending in quiet, hard-won hope.
Three connected graphic novels about grief, invisibility and friendship, growing more emotionally searching with each volume before closing on gentle, hard-won healing.
Primary themes
Overall tone
- Bittersweet
- Heartwarming
- Thought provoking
- Melancholic
Read in publication order — Sheets, then Delicates, then Lights. The story and emotional stakes build continuously across the three books.
One arc
The shape of the series.
- INarrative arcBooks 1–3 · 2018–2023High sensitivity
A ghost, a laundrette, and letting go
A grieving girl, a misfit ghost and a bullied classmate move from loss toward gentle healing.
The three books form one continuous emotional journey. Sheets introduces Marjorie's grief and her friendship with Wendell in a mostly warm, quirky register; Delicates darkens considerably, following the isolated, bullied Eliza and confronting invisibility and mental-health distress head-on; Lights turns to Wendell's past and the memory, grief and forgiveness needed to move forward. Read together they trace a deliberate deepening — from tender loss, through the trilogy's most intense and sensitive middle, into a reflective, hopeful close. Thummler carries much of the feeling through colour and light rather than incident, which keeps the story accessible even as its themes mature. Best experienced in order and as a whole, for older children and early teens.
Fit check
Right for your reader?
Where the series lands by age
- 1
- 3
- 5
- 7
- 9
- 11
- 13
- 15
- 17
- 19
- Best fit · 9–14
- Read aloud · 9–13
- Independent · 9–14
Reluctant-reader friendliness
High
Read-aloud quality
Workable
Adult crossover
High
Grows with the reader
Designed to
Sensitivity envelope
High overall, and consistent.
Content notes
- Death of parent
- Grief
- Mental health
- Self harm
- Bullying
Where it sits
In conversation with other series.
Similar in feel
Different shelves, same wavelength.
- Real Friends →
About the author