Eliza Fricker's Thumbsucker: An illustrated journey through an undiagnosed autistic childhood

We're delighted to have hosted the online launch of Sunday Times Bestselling author Eliza Fricker's new book Thumbsucker: An illustrated journey through an undiagnosed autistic childhood.

Best-selling author of Can't Not Won't, Eliza Fricker has a new book out!

Spoilt. Weirdo. Fussy. Hypochondriac. Chatterbox.

Eliza spent her childhood being told she was all of these until her autism diagnosis as an adult revealed why she had experienced the world so differently. But what does it mean to grow up knowing you are different, misunderstood, 'difficult'?

Funny, witty and tender, Sunday Times bestselling author and illustrator Eliza Fricker, uses her own memories of growing up in the 80s to explore how neurodiversity presents itself in everyday life and what neurodivergent children really need from the people who love them.

From the introduction:
This book tells the story of growing up different. It takes ownership of the names I was called. I know now that those
names weren’t nice and only taught me to hide my difficulties more. I grew up feeling ashamed and questioning who I was.
It was exhausting.
It was confusing.
I hid myself.
I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I was actually finding lots of things really hard and exhausting. Those names didn’t help,
they just made me feel bad (a lot of the time). But I feel passionate about not just accepting this. And not accepting
some of the roles that pigeon-hole and define the female experience in particular. Now I want to say – just because
that’s how it was then doesn’t mean it was okay.