A Kind Of Spark is the Times Children’s Book of the Week!
A massive congratulations to Elle McNicoll on her debut, A Kind Of Spark, being the Times Children’s Book of the Week!
A KIND OF SPARK tells the story of 11-year-old Addie as she campaigns for a memorial in memory of the witch trials that took place in her Scottish hometown. Addie knows there’s more to the story of these ‘witches’, just like there is more to hers. Can Addie challenge how the people in her town see her, and her autism, and make her voice heard? A story about friendship, courage and self-belief, perfect for fans of The Goldfish Boy
Read the full review by Alex O’Connell here:
Other than Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, great novels with autistic lead characters are thin on the ground. Now Elle McNicoll, in this funny, astute debut, helps to correct that imbalance. Like Addie, her narrator, who lives in a small village near Edinburgh, she is Scottish and neurodivergent.
Addie, 11, the younger sibling of the almost-adult twins Keedie (also autistic) and Nina (not), struggles at school. Miss Murphy, a teacher who terrorised her sister before her, fails to appreciate the girl’s love of books and out-of-the-box thinking. Addie must also navigate Emily, a student and bully who turns her friend Jenna against her, insults her and rips up Addie’s precious thesaurus.
Through Addie’s story, McNicoll reminds us of the assumptions made about the neurologically different, skewering these beautifully while showing us that autism is not something you have, it’s what you are. It’s a big-hearted tale that shows compassion for all, even the loathsome Miss Murphy (a little cartoonish? I’d have dialled her down a notch).
McNicoll also injects what could have been a rather on-the-nose school tale of the bullied taking on the bullies with a welcome historical shot as Addie becomes interested in the Scottish witch trials (far more witches were killed in Scotland than in England) and its connection to Juniper Green, her home near the Water of Leith; the namesake tree is said to deter evil spirits.
With the help of her friend Audrey, a new girl from London, Addie lobbies the council to erect a plaque to honour the women who were executed. McNicoll must have read reports that a councillor in Fife led a cross-party effort to establish a national memorial. The girls’ mission is partly motivated by their own outsider status and Elle’s extraordinary empathy for historical characters. She even finds a modern-day Boo Radley character to fund the project.
McNicoll, an editor and university mentor who lives in east London, is particularly good on sibling dynamics; I loved Keedie, the university student who collapses with exhaustion from masking her autism, and Nina, a beige-wearing beauty vlogger who feels left out of her siblings’ special club.
Talking of special clubs, the publisher Knights Of also puts out some of the best BAME children’s fiction around, including Jason Reynolds and Sharna Jackson. Check them out at knightsof.media.
