Keeping the Moon is an award-winning novel by author Sarah Dessen. Keeping the Moon is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Quick Pick and an SLJ Best Book of the Year. In this novel Nicole Sparks, who goes by the nickname Colie, goes to spend the summer with eccentric Aunt Mira in the small beach town of Colby. Colie's mother, Kiki Sparks, is a world-renowned fitness and nutrition guru that is touring Europe for the summer to promote her programs and fitness products. The novel focuses on self-esteem issues that children go through when they are overweight or different from the other kids in their school. The novel also deals with the issue of bullying taking place in schools and among children, and how bullying and torment breaks down the self-esteem of children. The summer that Colie spends in Colie teaches her that she has always had what she needs inside of her to feel and be a beautiful person; she just needed some kind and understanding people to bring it out in her.

Aunt Mira, which is Kiki's sister, is a very eccentric and overweight person. At first, Colie sees a lot of herself in Aunt Mira. The townspeople make fun of Mira, how she dresses and the fact that Mira helps some of the other townspeople that are in need, such as Norman. In the end, Colie realizes that Mira and Colie are nothing alike. Mira is and always has been comfortable with who she is and does not care what others think of her. Colie, on the other hand, has not quite gotten to the point where she feels comfortable in her own skin.

When Colie meets Isabel and Morgan, the two waitresses that work at the Last Chance grill in town, she learns what having girlfriends is like for the first time. The two girls help Colie to find herself and to share in things that girlfriends share.

Colie also learns what it is like to like a boy and have him like her back, when she sees Norman as more than someone who helps her aunt and works as the cook at the Last Chance. By the end of the novel, Colie has made a transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly and feels right about herself for the first time.