by Elle McNicoll
Shortlisted Little Rebels Award 2025
“Masking is this horrible, exhausting thing autistics are made to do in order to survive in a neurotypical world…It’s about hiding the parts of yourself that come naturally so they don’t seem unnatural to others. It’s physical. It’s insidious. …Dad told me to think about it like battle armour. But I never enlisted for this war.” (p75)
13-year-old, working class, vintage queen, Keedie Darrow, lives in Jupiter, a tiny, insular Scottish village. It’s a place which makes her and her best friend Bonnie (who is also neurodivergent) feel exiled. But Keedie is passionate about her right to stand out and thrive. Determined to tackle their hostile environment at both an individual and structural level, she sets up an anti-bullying agency in her school, addressing both pupils and teachers, and, from here, she defiantly takes on the wider village, its legacies and traditions. As Keedie says: “This place has made Bonnie and I feel like outcasts, now and for always. But I won’t accept that narrative.”
‘As with so many of McNicoll’s other work, we’re immediately plunged into the world view of a neurodivergent protagonist, an outlook mapped out with such precision and conviction that, as a neurotypical reader, it took quite some time, after reading it, to re-adjust to what society deems “normative”. McNicoll seems to be able to dismantle, in just a few paragraphs, the "truisms" that we’re fed. Astonishing writing’ (Fen, Letterbox Library staff/reviewer).
A beautifully crafted novella, written as a prequel to A Kind of Spark (but works perfectly as a stand alone), fleshing out Addie’s original story. Published by the wonderful indie press, Knights Of. [Includes a budding queer romance!]. Age 9-13, Paperback 206pp
Themes: Bullying Themes: LGBTQ+ Themes: Disabiities