AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Emmy Award-winning actor and "Saturday Night Live" alumnus Kate McKinnon has written her first book. It's a mystery aimed at the middle-school set with a vibe that will appeal to those who know her from "SNL"...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")
KATE MCKINNON: (As Dr. Wayne Wenowdis) Who does dis (ph)? He do dis. We know dis.
CHANG: ...Or who know her from the "Barbie" movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BARBIE")
MCKINNON: (As Weird Barbie) What's cooking, good-looking?
MARGOT ROBBIE: (As Barbie) Hi.
MCKINNON: (As Weird Barbie) Welcome. Welcome to my weird house.
CHANG: As NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, the book is something of a love letter to her fellow weirdos.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Kate McKinnon says when she was little, she wore costumes to school all the time - Peter Pan, Snow White, Pippi Longstocking.
MCKINNON: And I would go to school in these outfits because I felt more confident and somehow more myself. Go figure.
BLAIR: McKinnon's pets included newts, an iguana and Madagascar hissing cockroaches.
MCKINNON: They're, like, three inches long. And they - when you touch them, they do emit a hissing sound through holes in their abdomen - a beautiful creature.
BLAIR: One of her favorite authors was the darkly humorous Roald Dahl, especially his book about the witches who turn children into mice.
MCKINNON: I love a delicious villain. And who's more delicious than the Grand High Witch? But I loved also that it started with a set of instructions about how to identify real witches. And I was so taken by that because I thought, I know it's fantasy, but, like, he's talking to me.
BLAIR: So McKinnon talks to her readers and listeners. She begins "The Millicent Quibb School Of Etiquette For Young Ladies Of Mad Science" with a warning.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIOBOOK, "THE MILLICENT QUIBB SCHOOL OF ETIQUETTE FOR YOUNG LADIES OF MAD SCIENCE")
MCKINNON: (Reading) The situations contained in these books could cause instant death - (vocalizing). Extremely instant death - bad. Semi-instant death - worse. Burning in the upper extremities - ouch, ouch, ouch. Burning in the lower extremities - (vocalizing). Permanent...
BLAIR: Danger lurks in Antiquarium, the turn-of-the-century town where McKinnon's novel takes place. The Porch sisters are kind of like McKinnon when she was 12. They love slugs and bats, rocks and explosions. They're teased by their classmates at etiquette school and shamed by their teacher.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIOBOOK, "THE MILLICENT QUIBB SCHOOL OF ETIQUETTE FOR YOUNG LADIES OF MAD SCIENCE")
MCKINNON: (Reading) Enough. I pray that I never have to see your horrible faces again, even on a wanted poster.
BLAIR: Enter Millicent Quibb, the disorganized but well-meaning mad scientist who takes the sisters under her wing and trains them to help her save the town from evil. McKinnon says she imagined Millicent would sound a little like the legendary actor Katharine Hepburn.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIOBOOK, "THE MILLICENT QUIBB SCHOOL OF ETIQUETTE FOR YOUNG LADIES OF MAD SCIENCE")
MCKINNON: (Reading) Excellent, Millicent began. Now, I've never started a school before, so I'm just as nervous as you are - probably more so.
BLAIR: Kate McKinnon started writing "Millicent Quibb" before she joined "Saturday Night Live" in 2012. At the time, she was doing sketch comedy for free in the basement of a New York supermarket.
MCKINNON: It felt for me like a way to perform when I didn't have to be at a show at the basement that night. And I just found I really loved it and just started writing about these three little weirdos and their Willy Wonka-esque mentor.
BLAIR: McKinnon wants young people to see their weirdness as their strength.
MCKINNON: To give them the courage to think, oh, that thing that makes you weird - that's actually the thing that you can use to save the town, save the world, save yourselves. That's a message that I find true.
BLAIR: Kate McKinnon's "The Millicent Squibb School Of Etiquette For Young Ladies Of Mad Science" (ph) is the first in a series. McKinnon says the next one comes out next year.
Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
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