She has the gift of time travel she also has trouble fitting in at the top-secret Intercalary International academy because of her neurodivergence. In a world somewhat like our own, Elle (loves that her name is a palindrome, hates her too-tight cornrows) is a 29 February leapling.

This is a highly original tale that deserves to be longer, and more acutely marketed, because The Infinite sometimes reads like an Alex Rider or Artemis Fowl-style novel. The Infinite (Canongate), by contrast, is the debut children’s novel by poet Patience Agbabi, whose inspiration comes from her autistic son (and her undiagnosed, but complicated late mother). Vividly drawn are Addie’s sensory overstimulation and the bone-weary shifts worked by Addie’s loving parents the cruelty of a teacher who refuses to make allowances for Addie is particularly keenly felt. Might some of them have been autistic? Although Addie is adamant the women deserve a memorial, the village is not so keen to commemorate a bleak episode. Two recent British debuts feature two very different neurodivergent female main characters – because there’s a lot of diversity in neurodiversity.Īuthor Elle McNicoll is herself on the autism spectrum and in A Kind of Spark (Knights Of), her protagonist, Addie, becomes outraged when she learns how her Scottish village persecuted women who were different – witches. Spoiler alert: RJ never makes it out, but gives Will the gift of drumming and much else Wolkenstein’s transposing of emotion into rhythms is just one of this book’s strengths.Įlle McNicoll: author of the ‘vividly drawn’ A Kind of Spark.Īutism is often associated with boys, partly because girls can better mask it. Scowling from within a hoodie to hide a jaw problem, Will is shy, hurting and angry, but the friendship that very slowly ensues between him and RJ is never cheesy. Herpetology fan Will is wrestling with the prospect of surgery when his hippy rabbi suggests visiting an older boy, RJ, in hospital to overcome his fear of medical settings.

Stead’s characters are recognisable kids of flesh and blood who Skype and try oysters and face down homophobes, and her resolutions manage to be both unsaccharine and heartening.ĭebutant M Evan Wolkenstein’s autobiographical Turtle Boy (Usborne) grew from a comic strip, which might explain why the cover art is a smidge younger than the story inside. Bea’s dad is marrying someone else – the lovely Jesse, a man whose daughter is a prospective stepsister for Bea. American author Rebecca Stead is a Newbery Medal and Guardian children’s fiction prize-winner and her excellent latest outing, The List of Things That Will Not Change (Andersen Press), enumerates the comforting constants Bea wrote down when her parents (amicably) divorced.īut Bea’s childhood tendency to lash out has had lasting consequences, and change is afoot once again. Then, there’s the more everyday kind of fear.

Malamander review