A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll

 

On Saturday, I finished reading A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll. This realistic fiction novel is about Addie, an 11-year-old Scottish girl who is autistic and can see and hear things others cannot. After her teacher, Ms. Murphy, explains to her class about the witch trials that happened centuries ago in their small town of Juniper, Addie realizes that the women were burned just because they were different like herself and decides that she can’t let them be forgotten. Although the odds are stacked against her, she persistently proposes a memorial for the women who were falsely accused of witchcraft at Juniper's semimonthly committee meetings. Meanwhile, Addie's best friend, Jenna, has a new friend, Emily. At first, Addie doesn't want to lose Jenna as a friend, but as she struggles due to the bullying from Emily and Ms. Murphy, she decides to befriend the new girl, Audrey, who's from London. With the support of Audrey, her family, and the school librarian Mr. Allison, Addie fights for what's right.

I truly enjoyed this relatively short novel, which only took me a couple of days to read. I've long been interested in the history of witch trials, so I thought the plot of a girl coming up with the idea to build a memorial for falsely-accused witches was absolutely fascinating. It was even more interesting that this story took place in Scotland instead of the United States because I had only previously been exposed to stories about witch trials from the American perspective. Although I've read at least one book about a character who is autistic (Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin is the first to come to mind), Addie's story definitely provided a fresh point of view because it shows how challenging it can be for people who are autistic to mask, or pass as a neurotypical person. I also liked Audrey, Mr. Allison, and Addie's twin older sisters, Keedie and Nina. Despite the fact that Keedie and Nina are twins, they couldn't be more different. While Keedie is autistic like Addie and goes to university in Edinburgh, Nina is a social media influencer who talks about clothes and makeup. It was nice to follow how Addie's relationship grew with both of them over the course of the story. Even though the book adds a little three-dimensionality to Ms. Murphy and Emily, I absolutely couldn't stand how cruel they were to Addie. I didn't want Addie to have to remain in the same class for an entire school year. Thankfully, the end of A Kind of Spark was wonderful and I was really glad that Addie stuck to her goal and values. Her persistence was admirable. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt different from others.