Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children (novel)

Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children
Doctor:	Thirteenth Doctor
Featuring:	Frida Kahlo
Main enemy:	Caletans, Kappa
Main setting:	Mexico City, Mexico, April 1926
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Children's Books
Writer:	Sophie McKenzie
Release details
Release number:	1
Price:	£8.99 (GBP)
Release date:	24 October 2024
Format:	Paperback, 144 pages
ISBN:	9781405969925
The Icons Series
Next →	Charles Darwin and the Silurian Survival

Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children was the first novella in The Icons Series. It was written by Sophie McKenzie and published by Penguin Books under their imprint BBC Children's Books on 24 October 2024.

Publisher's summary

The Thirteenth Doctor meets the illustrious artist Frida Kahlo in the first of three brand-new novellas starring inspiring characters from history.

Some art can be deadly . . .

Young Frida Kahlo is angry. Injured in a terrible accident, she lives with constant pain and worries that her dreams are unreachable.

But when the TARDIS lands in Mexico City – drawn by a strange disturbance in its energy fields – Frida’s life is turned upside down. Aliens have arrived, taking over the bodies of children and killing anyone who gets in their way.

With the fate of the Earth at stake, the Doctor and Frida must find a way to understand their alien invaders, and each other.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Thirteenth Doctor
• Frida Kahlo

more to be added

Worldbuilding

Words and phrases

• Frida calls the Doctor a "güera": a fair-skinned, blonde-haired woman.
• "Las pelonas" referred to brave, daring women with the confidence to rebel against traditional expectations and celebrate their right to express themselves as they wanted.

Notes

to be added

Continuity

• The Eighth Doctor previously met Frida Kahlo in COMIC: The Way of All Flesh ^[+]Loading...["The Way of All Flesh (comic story)"]. From Frida's perspective, her encounter with the Thirteenth Doctor happened first.
• The Tenth Doctor would later pay her and her husband a couple of visits following "that incident in 1941", as mentioned in Revolutions of Terror ^[+]Loading...["Revolutions of Terror (comic story)"].
• The Doctor comments on how she has sent her Fam on other missions, explaining why she is on her own. The Doctor gained her Fam, consisting of Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair and Graham O'Brien, during a showdown with Tzim-Sha in The Woman Who Fell to Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Woman Who Fell to Earth (TV story)"].
• The Doctor mentions Heather and the “oil puddle”, which she encountered in TV: The Pilot ^[+]Loading...["The Pilot (TV story)"].
• The Doctor reckons the Caletans arrived in an asteroid roughly around the time that Adric also crashed to Earth, thus beckoning the Ice Age that brought about the death of the dinosaurs. The Fifth Doctor and companions witnessed fellow companion Adric's noble sacrifice to stop the Cybermen in Earthshock ^[+]Loading...["Earthshock (TV story)"].
• The Doctor comments about a time when she touched an unpleasant part of a Slitheen. Numerous Doctors have met the Slitheen, including the Fifth Doctor in Madquake ^[+]Loading...["Madquake (audio story)"], Ninth Doctor in Aliens of London ^[+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"], and the Tenth Doctor in The Taste of Death ^[+]Loading...["The Taste of Death (audio story)"].
• The locals find it difficult to take the Thirteenth Doctor seriously, not only in a medical profession, but as a woman of authority in general. She had previously witnessed such sexism in The Witchfinders ^[+]Loading...["The Witchfinders (TV story)"], which saw the Doctor tried as a witch due to her simply being clever.

Gallery

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  Placeholder cover

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  Full cover

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  Promo image

External links

• Official Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children page at Penguin Books