This child prodigy published her first novel at 12. She disappeared forever at 25. Her story is a new musical

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Child prodigy novelist Barbara Newhall Follett published her debut at 12, then vanished at 25, leaving an unsolved mysteries behind.

A world-premiere musical “Perfect World” opens Saturday at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, dramatizing her turbulent short life and mysterious disappearance.

The musical, created by retired psychologist Alan Edmunds, focuses on Follett’s resilience and love of nature rather than speculation about her death.

In the world of child prodigies, novelists are the rarest breed. Barbara Newhall Follett, born in Hanover, N.H., in 1914, fit the bill. By the time she was 9 years-old she had completed her first novel, a subsequent draft of which was pu