Anybody Here Seen Frenchie?

Anybody Here Seen Frenchie?

Leslie Conner

HarperCollins, 2022

322 pages

Grades 5-7

Realistic Fiction

Multiple points of view relate an incident in the life of two unconventional best friends. Aurora is about to start sixth grade. Every year since he moved next door in their rural Maine community and became her special person, Frenchie has been in Aurora's class and she helps him get through his day. Their families are close and live nearly communally. Frenchie is on the spectrum and is non-verbal. Quite the opposite, Aurora is shouty and impulsive. They both love tramping through the outdoors, though Aurora's special interest is rocks and Frenchie's is birds. Further changes greet the new school year as French is assigned a new teacher/partner and Aurora makes two friends for the first time in her school career. Everything seems to be clicking into place until a day in late September when Frenchie simply disappears after being dropped off at school. The whole town gets involved in the searching efforts. Aurora feels terrified and responsible. Where could Frenchie be? Clues come from unexpected places and it takes the entire community to ban together to find the lost boy.

Readers of emotional realistic fiction will find much to enjoy in this new book by a heart warming author. Though not as nuanced as The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle, Connor offers a thoughtful story that will pull at reader's heartstrings and contains her characteristically quirky characters. Readers will identify with Aurora and worry about Frenchie as he goes missing. I have seen this book described as a "mystery", but I don't think it really is. The reader always knows, more or less, where Frenchie is and that he's okay. There is suspense as the town must figure out the boy's whereabouts and then how exactly to get to him. Character growth is exhibited, particularly in Aurora, and the themes of the importance of community and embracing individual differences is front and center. I love that the book opens with a map (I'm a big fan of pouring over a map) and an author's note explains some of her inspirations for the tale. I felt that the book went longer than necessary for such a straightforward plot, but the right kind of reader won't mind. I enjoyed the brief forays into other folk's minds, including Frenchie, and feel that Connor writes the different narrators distinctly. Fans of the author's other works, Out of My Mind, Fish in a Tree, The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, and Because of Mr. Terupt will be the natural audience.