Naked Mole Rat Saves the World

Can Kit’s super-weird superpower save her world?

Twelve-year-old kit (with a small k) likes shopping at the flea market with her best friend, Clem, roller-skating, climbing to the roof to look at the stars, and volunteering at an animal shelter. Until suddenly she has a really big, really strange secret that makes life more complicated than she’s prepared for: Sometimes, without warning, she turns into a tiny naked mole rat.

It first happened as kit watched Clem fall and get hurt during a performance with her acrobatic-troupe family on TV. Since then, the transformations keep coming. Kit can’t tell Clem, because Clem hasn’t been herself after the accident. She’s mad and gloomy and keeping a secret of her own: the real reason she fell.

Months later, kit and Clem still haven’t figured out how to deal with all the ways they have changed—both inside and out. Somehow, kit has to save the day. But she’s no hero, and turning into a naked mole rat isn’t a superpower. Or is it?   

Karen Rivers’s books have been nominated for a wide range of literary awards and have been published in multiple languages. When she’s not writing, reading, or teaching other people how to write, she can usu­ally be found hiking and taking photos in the forest that flourishes behind her tiny old house in Victoria, British Columbia, where she lives with her two kids, three dogs, and three birds. Find her online at karenrivers.com and on Twitter: @karenrivers.