By Elle McNicoll
An autistic girl fights to memorialize the women her Scottish town once killed as witches, and to be seen herself.
Addie is eleven and autistic, living in a small Scottish village where a cruel teacher belittles her and classmates single her out. Then a lesson about the local women tried and killed as witches long ago stops her cold: she alone understands what it means to be feared and punished for being different. Addie decides those women deserve a memorial, and campaigning for it becomes the way she finds her own voice and refuses to disappear.
This is the sharpest, most grown-up book on the shelf, written by an autistic author who refuses to make Addie sweet or small. It hands your child a hero who is angry for good reason and channels it into something that matters. For an autistic child, it's a rare thing: a neurodivergent girl who is the smartest, bravest person in the room. It's short, but it asks the most of a reader's heart, which is why it sits at the far end of the shelf.