This is Kelsey Patterson with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Today, I’m recommending Alice Franklin’s tender and funny debut novel Life Hacks for a Little Alien. Before she thinks of herself as Little Alien, our main character is only a lonely little girl living in southeast England, who doesn’t understand the world the way all the other children seem to. When a late-night TV special introduces her to the mysterious Voynich Manuscript—an ancient tome written in an indecipherable language—Little Alien experiences something she never has before—hope. Could there be others like her, who also feel like they’re from another planet?
Convinced the Voynich Manuscript holds the answers she needs, Little Alien and her best (and only) friend Bobby decide they must find this strange book. Where that decision leads them will change everything. Fully told in second person and narrated by an unexpected guide who has arrived to offer Little Alien the advice she’ll need to find her way, Life Hacks for a Little Alien explores a less-familiar experience of the world, inviting us into the head of a child who doesn't read her surroundings the way we might assume or expect.
With humor, heart, and a healthy dose of humanity, Alice Franklin has created an utterly original story inspired by her own experience with autism. It’s perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Remarkably Bright Creatures. And in a way, it serves as a love letter to language—how it shapes the world for each of us and connects us all in the end.
Check out Life Hacks for a Little Alien and other imaginative works of fiction like it at the Sioux City Public Library.
Support for Check It Out on Siouxland Public Media comes from Avery Brothers.
