About Books: Fiona Finn

 

 

 

I never intended to be a children’s novelist. I wanted to write for grown-ups.

Don’t get me wrong; I like children now that I’m not one. When I was a child, they didn’t much like me. But as an adult, I seem to connect more with children.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve spent my adulthood working with children with special needs and learning challenges that makes me connect. I can relate to some of their difficulties as someone who is mildly dyslexic and has an attention deficit.

Also, being left-handed, I’ve always needed to adapt tools to fit my needs, so coming up with strategies for participating in a right-handed world, where people look at things differently than I do, has always been easy for me.

Kids who find things difficult can understand that I get it, and that I usually have a work-around.

Teachers, on the other hand, while they appreciate that I can come up with answers they wouldn’t have thought of, often look at me as if my head had exploded when those answers pop out of my mouth. I’m sure more than a few wonder what planet I dropped from.

My main tool is the ability to stand back and become a casual observer – albeit with a “toolbox” of specialized training and an ability to upgrade or downgrade an activity quickly to suit the abilities of the child – while the teacher is in the thick of things, handling a classroom, and often without the luxury of stepping back, taking a breath and figuring out why what she is doing isn’t working.

I have always felt challenged by the world around me, that I didn’t fit in and that I was never really accepted, so yes, I do get it.

This feeling of inadequacy led to the creation of my character, Fiona Finn. She’s not your usual little girl.  

Finn isn’t actually her surname; it’s what the children at school call her because of her “deformity.”

Fiona was born with a fin on her back. At first it was just a little thing, but as she grew it kept pace with her, to her parents’ horror.

While they loved her as she was, more or less, they wanted her to fit in, so they tried to have the fin removed. It grew back, and the doctors concluded it couldn’t be permanently removed until she was finished growing.

Her parents tried various means to hide the fin, and her mother gave her strict instructions not to let others know about her fin. She was trying to protect her daughter from the teasing and bullying she knew would result from others finding out about the fin.

One little girl who read the story told me she thought the mother was mean. Sometimes the things parents do to protect their children may seem mean to children, but they mean well. This was Fiona’s mother.

Her grandmother was, perhaps, a wiser head. She probably understood that the children would eventually find out about her difference, whether she wanted them to or not, which is, of course, what did happen. The grandmother encouraged her to embrace her uniqueness and be proud of who she is. She even made the girl bathing suits with an opening in the back to allow her fin to fly free – to the horror of Fiona’s mother.

Fiona receives quite a lot of bullying in school, so much so that her parents consider moving her to another school. The fact that those in charge seem unwilling to do much about the bullying is representative of some people’s attitudes toward anyone who is different.

The story represents anyone who feels different from their peers, not just those with disabilities. The fact that Fiona becomes something of a hero in the story serves to show children – and anyone who reads the book – that different doesn’t necessarily mean broken.