Author Nizrana Farook Visits Croxley Danes School

The Year 7 students were treated to a visit from guest author, Nizrana Farook last week. Nizrana spoke to the students in connection with her debut novel, “The Girl Who Stole an Elephant” which has been acclaimed as Waterstones Kids book of the month.

One of our Year 7 students, Emilia, wrote the following delightful article based on Nizrana’s visit:

On Friday 24^th January 2020, Nizrana Farook, the debut author of Waterstone's Book of the Month, ‘The Girl Who Stole An Elephant’ came to speak to Year 7 about how the book came about and what some of her inspiration was. Nizrana moved to the UK thirteen years ago from Sri Lanka, a small island off the southeast coast of India.

The book is about a girl called Chaya. She is a Robin-Hood-style character that steals to help the poor survive. Only this time she has gone a bit too far by stealing from the royal household itself! The story is about how Chaya goes about fixing what she has done.

After we had heard a little about the book and its inspiration, the students got to ask Nizrana some questions: ‘How long did it take to get the book written and published?’; ‘How did you come up with the characters?’; and ‘Would you write another book?’.

She also told us what a writer fears the most! Some students took a guess at what it might be. Some thought it was the audience’s first reaction, some thought it might be rejection and others thought it might be the feedback from publishers. However, the actual answer turned out to be when they were faced with ‘The Blank Page!’. Most writers would freeze at the thought of so much choice and what to write on the page.

After the visit, I asked some of the students what they thought about the book and Nizrana’s approach to writing. Nancy from 7S said, ‘It is lovely that she is inspiring others and sharing her experience’. Another Year 7 student said that ‘I like her approach to how she writes and comes up with ideas’.

Thank you Emilia for such an insightful article on the author visit and capturing the event so well.