“Finally Heard” is Kelly Yang’s newest middle grade fiction. Author Yang is known for her powerful middle grade and young adult novels about fitting in, making friends, finding one’s place in life, and appreciating family. Many children appreciate the vulnerability in her fictional characters because it reflects some of their own feelings. Her first novel, “Front Desk,” for example, reflected her own experiences growing up as her parents managed hotels and she helped work the front desk.

In this novel, we meet Lina, whose parents immigrated to the United States from China. Her father works in a lab during the day and parks cars as a valet at night. He’s often exhausted, and they don’t see him a lot because of his long work hours. Her mother makes and sells bath bombs but struggles to make much money. They can’t afford things like new shoes, and Lina is uncomfortable with her changing body and worries that she won’t be able to purchase a bra when she needs one. She’s too embarrassed to talk to her mom about her worries.

When her mother makes a video about bath bombs, and the video helps sell her product, Lina and her younger sister are excited. Lina uses her mom’s phone to make more videos. And while Lina and her best friend Carla are the only two kids in her grade not to have their own phones, they work with the librarian to make videos for the school’s library website. Lina’s friend Finn helps, too, but their friendship feels strange when Finn’s friends seem not to like Lina. Then there is also the group of popular girls who are mean to Lina and Carla.

What the story really delves into is the misuse and danger of social media. It’s refreshing to see that both Lina and her mother learn a lesson about social media and the trolls. Lina sees how once conversations take place online, and not in person, many of our built-in inhibitions against cruelty disappear. Online people, the kids in her class, feel free to be really hurtful and make vicious comments about others. Even Lina succumbs to this feeling of absolute unfettered, uninhibited freedom to feel that she can say anything with no consequences.

I think this is an important novel for young middle grade readers to read and to discuss either with their peers or in a classroom setting with a teacher or adult guiding the discussion. Another extremely important point that Yang shares in this novel is the danger of some online communications and how scammers and criminals take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to get personal information about people. This is an important lesson that cannot be taught too early—in the sense that it’s important for any child on the internet to understand the problem.

My own experience with scammers is that a person I know well, with multiple degrees, was scammed out of his life savings by purported women who started romantic relationships with him online. All virtual. And this kind, generous man sent money to these women who talked of raising grandchildren, brain tumors, and other traumas that had him sending them money. All fake. In this story, Carla is befriended by a “kid” who she believes is her age. He sends her a picture of himself, and their stories about life are amazingly similar. Needless to say, we learn that hers is a cautionary tale of what not to do on the internet.

But even a story with lessons to teach and information to share won’t influence children unless it’s a book they want to read. Yang has quite a following from her previous novels. And even though this book is a sequel to “Finally Seen,” you’d never know that. There’s one brief mention of something that happened previously, a book banning, but otherwise this novel stands beautifully on its own. Of course, now I want to go back and read “Finally Seen”! The characters, the dialogue, the family relationships all feel wonderfully real ,and the story is engaging. Kids, especially girls, will love it!

This review is based on the advance reader’s copy provided by Simon & Schuster, the publisher, for review purposes.