A Kind of Spark

What an extraordinary book! Within a few pages I was rapt. This is a story about an Autistic girl who is bullied and misunderstood. It is not a depressing trail. Addie is full of life and has a kind and open heart. Her friend Audrey, her autistic sister Katie, and a kindly librarian who encourages

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her curiosity counterbalance the bullying for the reader, and for Addie herself. It is wonderful to see the world through her eyes and to have it its weaknesses and its strengths reflected back in a very human way. It is wonderful to learn along with her about caring for yourself and about The witch trials of Scotland. Addie is horrified when she learns that her town was responsible for the murder of several women who were accused of witchcraft. Addie quickly realises that they were killed not for being witches but for being, as she is, different.

Do read this book. You will feel so happy that you did.

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An autistic girl struggles to negotiate life in her small Scottish village. She has a bully as a teacher and hardly any support in the school at all, beyond a sympathetic librarian (because librarians are The Best). When her class starts studying the local history of witch burnings, at first she

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feels overwhelmed with empathy for those long-ago women who unjustly lost their lives, but she decides to channel that energy into campaigning for a memorial for them instead.
This is another book that should be required reading in middle schools. It does such a great job of presenting the challenges of everyday life for autistic people in a way that shows they're not disabled but that the world is just not structured in a way that's at all accommodating for them. That they don't have 'special' needs, just slightly different ones from those most people have. That autism isn't something one *has*, it's something one *is*. I'm a firm believer in the idea that the way we can raise kinder, smarter, and more empathetic citizens is to have them read more books with characters who are inherently different from them. This book absolutely deserves a place on that reading list.

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5.0

Wonderful own voices rep for the neurodivergent.

I was enjoying the first half of this book. The main character Addie is a very bright and likeable autistic girl, and I thought the author did a great job writing about the challenges she faced forging friendships in her classroom. However the second half had two things that lowered my opinion of

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the book. The character of the teacher was way overwritten and her ranting got a bit ridiculous. It was hard to take seriously. And I disliked the way the author turned Addie into a victim. I was enjoying this spirited and passionate young lady and was really disappointed with the author's choices to portray her the way she did toward the end of the story. I loved Addie but hated the direction the author chose to take the story.

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Really powerful story about an autistic girl who discovers that her small Scottish village once killed women who were different. I love that this book both shows and tells -- we get Elle's perspective and that gives us a sense of what is happening around her and what bothers her (sensory, mostly)

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and why she reacts the ways she does. We also get Elle's older sisters' perspectives -- twins, one who is also autistic and one who is not. There is some significant bullying by Elle's teacher and some of her classmates. There is also significant allyship by some of Elle's teachers and one of her classmates. It feels balanced and insightful and I really enjoyed it.

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