Review of Hidden by Miriam Halahmy

Hidden is the first in a cycle of books by Miriam Halahmy, set on Hayling Island. Hidden tells the story of Alix, a fourteen year old girl who discovers a drowning immigrant, Mohammed on the beach. Along with her classmate Samir, they rescue and hide Mohammed in a secluded hut. Samir, like Mohammed, is from Iraq, and he suffers at the hands of a group of ignorant bullies at school. The attitude of her fellow classmates prompts Alix into some deep soul searching. She finds herself questioning the attitudes and beliefs of all the people she knows. The book is well written and brings to life the ordinary life that Samir and others like him have to leave behind and how difficult it is to be wrenched away from friends and family and thrown into a different culture. Through his friendship with Alix, he learns to trust people and gains confidence. The exploration of different relationships between characters encourages the readers to reflect on their own attitudes. There are many exciting twists and turns in this book and I am looking forward to reading Illegal, which continues the cycle with the story of Lindy.

Miriam Halahmy at the Jewish Museum

On Friday June 15th  EGA students from Years 7 and 8 visited the Jewish museum to see two authors, Miriam Halahmy and Gillian Cross, as part of the PopUp Festival. http://pop-up.org.uk/ I had the privilege of attending the talk with Miriam Halahmy, who spoke to a Year 7 group about her book 'Hidden.'

Hidden is set on Hayling Island, where Miriam grew up and deals with a pair of teenagers who find an illegal immigrant on the beach and hide him in a hut. (For more information on the book see my review post).

Miriam talked about how she is married into an Iraqi family, who are of Arabic Jewish origin. She talked about the mass evacuation of Jews from Iraq and how this influenced her book, the idea for which sprang into her mind when she was walking on the beach in Hayling one day. She told the students that the message she wanted to get across was how people who come from other countries live ordinary lives; their country isn't just about wars and devastation. She read out a passage from the book which illustrated this, where Samir recalls his homeland and she talked a bit about Iraq and her family connections there.

The students had all read the book and clearly enjoyed the session, especially when they got to act out bits of the story. They asked lots of questions and Miriam was particularly pleased with the comment from one student who said:

'I love the twists in your writing, the way I can't predict what Lindy or anyone will do.'

Miriam showed us the cover for 'Illegal' and talked about how the designer had come up with the concept of doors. The door on the cover of Hidden is the door of the hut on the beach where Mohammed is hidden.The door on the cover of Illegal is the door of the house Lindy is looking after. She talked about the books which follow Hidden – each of the next two books picks up on a minor character in Hidden and takes up their story.

After that Miranda from the Jewish museum ran a workshop on Jewish people and traditions and the girls used some artefacts to flesh out characters they had learnt about during the morning. Then they spent some time looking around the museum. It was a fantastic event.

Carnegie Shadowing 2012

Yesterday the Bookaholics took part in the Islington Carnegie Shadowing event, which took place at Platform Youth Hub - a fantastic venue for young people. The ceremony was hosted by Meg Rosoff, author of 'There is no dog,'and 'Just in Case' among others. Each school performed a representation of their favourite book or a selection of books. Students from Mount Carmel, IAMS, St Mary Magdalene and Highbury Grove entertained us with drama, videos and readings. EGA performed a sketch entitled 'The Read,' based on 'The Voice,' where our four judges had to choose from a selection of books presented to them by students. Then Meg Rosoff talked to everyone about how she became an author and how certain moments that stick in the brain (her colander) can pop up in her books. Above all she encouraged everyone to think about what they really like to do and find a way to pursue it in life. She was witty and interesting and the audience gave her a huge round of applause at the end. After that everybody voted for their winner and the Islington choice was 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness; this was also EGA's favourite. Later that day it was announced that 'A Monster Calls' was the national winner. So Islington have good taste!

Congratulations to Nasra, Munna, Aissato, Rahma, Amy, Nikita, Shuma, Mahmuda, Khadra and Zahra 9E for their dope* performance.

*Meg Rosoff, originally from Boston, thought Rahma (Will.I.am) was American!



Meg Rosoff with The Bookaholics



Our first visitor!

On our first day of opening we hosted an event where Gail Rebuck from Random House talked to the Reading group and some Fast Track English students from Year 9 about books and working in the world of publishing. The students asked lots of questions and each got to choose a fiction book which she had kindly donated from the publishing company.

The new Library in Classroom B3

The Library counter

This week we have completed our move and the library is open for business. Despite being in an old classroom, the library has a cosy feel to it and as much fiction as we could manage to fit in. Different faces are popping by and it is a blessing to be away from the noisy reception. Here are some photographs of our new space.

Guardian Young Reporters

Four EGA students spent an enjoyable, informative day at The Guardian in preparation for their role as Cultural creators for the 2012 Pop Up Festival. They created a newspaper page advertising the authors and the events, which are happening at the festival on the 30th June and 1st July. Students at EGA have been reading books and attending worskops with Sita Brahmachari, Cat Clarke,Gillian Cross,Candy Gourlay, Miriam Halahmy, Catherine Johnson, Sally Nicholls, Meg Rosoff, Marcus Sedgwick, Nicky Singer and Ali Sparkes.