Life Hacks for a Little Alien

September 1, 2024

In her debut, Franklin, who is neurodivergent, explores how language shapes and connects people through the story of a girl who thinks of herself as Little Alien because she feels different from others. When she learns about an ancient tome in an indecipherable language, she has hope that there are others like her, launching her on a quest to find the mysterious manuscript. Prepub Alert.

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December 2, 2024
Franklin’s fresh debut, inspired by her experience with autism, centers on an unnamed girl in southeast England known as Little Alien. She has only one friend, a boy named Bobby who stood up for her once at her previous school. As part of her desire to understand the greater connections between herself and life on Earth, Little Alien latches onto the 15th-century Voynich Manuscript, an indecipherable text believed by some to have been written by extraterrestrials. Hoping to translate it, she delves into the study of linguistics, and she and Bobby sneak off to London to see the manuscript while it’s on loan at a university. Their adventure sends their parents into fits of anxiety, particularly Little Alien’s mother, who suffers a mental breakdown. After she’s institutionalized, Little Alien schemes to break her out. Franklin delightfully renders her neurodivergent protagonist’s attempt to make sense of what’s “normal” and to understand how language works, as when she asks about the word interactive, “Does ‘inter’ mean between, just like ‘international’ means ‘between nations’? Does ‘active’ mean ‘exercise’? What would ‘between-exercise’ mean?” This has plenty of heart. Agent: Lisa Baker, Aitken Alexander Assoc.

January 1, 2025
Franklin's debut is quirky and charming even as it deals with important social and mental-health issues. In a second-person point of view, an unidentified narrator has the ability to peer into a little girl's mind. The little girl, who is never named, believes she is an alien, so she's called Little Alien. Little Alien isn't like other kids. Schools don't know what to do with her, and her parents are frustrated by her behavior. She doesn't always speak, she rocks when she's feeling scared or nervous, and she takes everything literally. Little Alien is also navigating her fear of her mother's severe depression and anxiety. But her stress is alleviated when, at the age of 12, she learns about the Voynich Manuscript. This enigmatic book from the fifteenth century contains unknown codes, diagrams, pictures of plants and animals, and much more. Little Alien is fascinated by this codex, and together with her one friend, Bobby, she gets lost in research. This is a moving story of a unique girl learning to embrace her differences.

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February 15, 2025
In this debut novel, a British girl grows up half believing she's an actual alien because she views the world so differently than other children. An unnamed, omniscient narrator tells the 3-year-old girl the story of her life to come. Franklin hits all the notes common in novels about children on the spectrum or having "issues." Little Alien, as the narrator calls her, is bullied by other children and by teachers, reads situations with an eccentric yet oddly insightful literalness, and acts out her frustration with guttural noises. Yet the book's tone and structure offer unexpected surprises. The narrator addresses the novel directly to Little Alien and also includes numerous footnotes that define terms, suggest further readings, and explain complex concepts to both Little Alien and the reader as the novel evolves into a deep dive into an actual, somewhat academic, ongoing mystery surrounding the Voynich Manuscript, an illustrated codex discovered in 1912 and now residing at Yale's Beinecke Library. Dating from the 1400s, the manuscript includes odd pictures and writing in a language no one has yet decoded. At 12, Little Alien happens upon a television interview in which the widow of a Voynich researcher mentions that her husband believed the manuscript was the work of aliens. Little Alien's interest is piqued. Until now she has suffered through childhood discounted as an oddball at school while coping with her mother's bouts of mental illness at home (fortunately aided by her sane, loving, understandably anxious father). Discovering the Voynich Manuscript changes her life, giving her not only a sense of direction but a pathway toward friendship and self-acceptance. Along the way she meets a series of unlikely protectors, not least a linguist who sees nothing alien about her new prot�g�. The writing can be a bit arch, and sometimes repetitive, but these are minor quibbles. Originality and cerebral playfulness combine with affecting family drama to make a satisfying, lively novel.

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