SNAPSHOT
The Littlest Bigfoot follows lonely Alice Mayfair, who is neglected by her parents and sent to a string of boarding schools. She’s self conscious about her body and frizzy hair and wants to find a friend. She does so in kindred spirit, Millie Maximus, a Bigfoot, and fights to save her new friend from Bigfoot hunters. (synopsis (c) EW)
As someone who experienced horrific teasing at school virtually every step of the way, and struggled to find friends despite being a naturally gregarious kid (and now adult), books like Jennifer Weiner’s The Littlest Bigfoot resonate deeply with me.
When you are utterly alone, through no choice of your own (after all, who in their right mind wants to be socially ostracised?), you crave a friend, someone who will stick by you and have your back when no one seems inclined to do so.
And Jennifer Weiner has injected this very real sense of social rejection into a magical narrative that will speak powerfully to anyone who has ever wanted a friend in childhood and never found them because, understandably, when reality fails you, you reach for fantastical possibilities.
Perhaps John or Steve from school won’t be my friend but some person or caring creature from an imaginative, more inclusive caring realm beyond my own will.
That’s where the power of this story will likely lie – it captures not just the crushing loneliness of being friendless in childhood but the places your mind and heart go in search of something, anything, anyone, to fill the void.
I grant you I’m not this book’s major demographic but I will be ordering it and reading it, and remembering once again how precious a friend can be, especially when you need them the most.
The Littlest Bigfoot arrives on shelves 13 September 2016.