A day can change everything in this exclusive short story from the award-winning author of I Am Thunder, written for World Book Day 2020. Fifteen-year-old Salma Hashbi has been caught with her boyfriend in a totally humiliating misunderstanding. Instantly accused of being easy, she is shunned by everyone at school, shamed by her community and worst of all has disappointed her mum. Enough is enough and Salma decides to fight back against the prejudice and rumours and audition for the role of her dreams. But on the hottest day of the year, with everything against her, can Salma make it in time and show the world who she really is? A powerful story of standing up and standing out from the Branford Boase Award-winning Muhammad Khan.

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 14 years.

There are 172 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2020 by Pan Macmillan .

Muhammad Khan is an engineer, a secondary-school maths teacher, and now a YA author! He takes his inspiration from the children he teaches, as well as his own upbringing as a British-born Pakistani. He lives in South London and has an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary's. His debut novel I Am Thunder won the Branford Boase First Novel Award, the 2018 Great Reads Award and a number of regional awards. His second novel, Kick the Moon is also published by Macmillan Children's Books.