Anybody Here Seen Frenchie?
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A big-hearted, beautiful, and funny novel told from multiple viewpoints about neurodiversity, friendship, and community from the award-winning author of The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle, Leslie Connor.
Eleven-year-old Aurora Petrequin’s best friend has never spoken a word to her. In fact, Frenchie Livernois doesn’t talk.
Aurora is bouncy, loud and impulsive—“a big old blurter.” Making friends has never come easily. When Frenchie, who is autistic, silently chose Aurora as his person back in third grade, she chose him back. They make a good team, sharing their love of the natural world in coastal Maine.
In the woods, Aurora and Frenchie encounter a piebald deer, a rare creature with a coat like a patchwork quilt. Whenever it appears, Aurora feels compelled to follow.
At school, Aurora looks out for Frenchie, who has been her classmate until this year. One morning, Frenchie doesn’t make it to his classroom. Aurora feels she’s to blame. The entire town begins to search, and everyone wonders: how is it possible that nobody has seen Frenchie?
At the heart of this story is the friendship between hyper-talkative Aurora and nonvocal Frenchie. Conflict arises when Aurora is better able to expand her social abilities and finds new friends. When Frenchie goes missing, Aurora must figure out how to use her voice to help find him, and lift him up when he is found.
Featuring a compelling mystery and a memorable voice, this is a natural next-read after Leslie Connor’s The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle.
* Kids’ Indie Next Pick * New England Book Award Finalists 2022 *
“Leslie Connor brilliantly depicts a genuine and meaningful friendship between a dynamic girl and her nonvocal friend. By showing the ways Aurora and Frenchie communicate, Connor gives us a blueprint for seeing autistic children in a new light. I loved, loved, loved this book!” —Cammie McGovern, author of Frankie and Amelia and Chester and Gus
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In alternating perspectives, Connor (The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle) centers two neighbors, both sixth graders cued as neurodivergent, in a coastal Maine town. Having a tendency to blurt and "trouble keeping still," self-described rock hound Aurora Petrequin "tells it like it is." She's fast friends with Frenchie Livernois, who communicates via physical responses his need for routine and interest in the natural world particularly birds. But when Frenchie disappears one morning, Aurora worries that her actions have resulted in a "Worst Possible" event, similar to the time she briefly lost her little brother on a hike. As the close-knit town organizes a tense search-and-rescue, occasional interstitials position community members' whereabouts and sightings of a piebald deer. Aurora's buoyant first-person telling dominates the narrative, interspersed with occasional third-person chapters that detail Frenchie's perspective in sensorially evocative language. Though this positioning at times minimizes Frenchie's mode of expression, Connor's well-plotted mystery and affectionate portrayal of the children's and their white families' close friendship thoughtfully considers themes of claiming space and becoming oneself. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8 up. Agent: Miriam Altshuler, DeFiore and Co.
