LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
May 2025 Debut of the Month
Janeen Hayat’s debut novel tells the stories of four girls, two of whom live in present day England, two who meet in Delhi in 1929.
A family history project at school is the start of a tentative friendship between Evie and Maryam, and the extraordinary discovery that their great-grandmothers, Kathy and Sofia, were close friends, as revealed in coded letters between the two sent during and after the Second World War.
Both sets of girls are equally well-drawn and their stories, while specific to them, show readers so much about British rule in India, the fight for independence, Partition and women’s lives in their great grandmothers’ times. There’s also an equally sensitive and nuanced description of bullying and the courage needed to call it out.
Well-written and skilfully structured, the story holds our attention from start to finish and leaves readers with lots to think about, past and present, and characters to remember.
Andrea Reece
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About
Evie and Maryam's Family Tree Synopsis
Evie and Maryam are in the same class at school, uneasily thrown together at the start of a new term as they start a project together looking into their family trees. The two girls don't think they have much in common - Maryam feels like an outsider at school with the other girls whose parents all seem to know each other, and Evie thinks Maryam is a bit odd.
But when the two girls each find the same mysterious folder containing documents in a secret language that belong to their grandmothers, they discover their ties go back two generations, all the way to India, to partition, and to two best friends who inspired each other more than they ever know.
A beautifully told historical family-based exploration of identity, inheritance, difference and friendship. Set in urban contemporary London primarily, alongside a past India at a time of rising tension, from the child's perspective
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781916558410 |
| Publication date: |
8th May 2025 |
| Author: |
Janeen Hayat |
| Publisher: |
Guppy Books an imprint of Guppy Publishing Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
352 pages |
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Author
About Janeen Hayat
Janeen Hayat grew up in Florida, a place she loves and hates in equal measure, and now lives in London with her partner and three chaotic, incredible children. She's half-Pakistani, half-New Yorker, a lapsed lawyer, teacher, Muslim and Catholic. She's passionate about creating characters that are many things at once -- because she knows she's not alone in being a tangled mass of identities, always changing. When she's not writing, she's advocating for an education system that gives every kid a fair chance.
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