Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree

Janeen Hayat

£7.99

The evocative and moving story of two very different girls in contemporary London who discover a family connection stretching back over 100 years before in the faraway country of India, at a tumultous time in its history; friendships spanning the centuries.

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 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.

‘This heartfelt historical offers a glimpse into colonial India and shows how the past shapes the present. Highly recommended’ School Reading List