Our author of the week is Nizrana Farook!
You can read or listen to The Girl Who Stole an Elephant completely FREE below, watch an exclusive video about Nizrana's new book, The Boy Who Met a Whale, discover her top three children's books and read an interview all about reading.
If you enjoy reading this book, your local library service has loads more ebooks to borrow for FREE. Ask your parents to help you join.
Read The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
Chaya, a no-nonsense, outspoken hero, leads her friends and a gorgeous elephant on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing the queen's jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?
Listen to The Girl Who Stole an Elephant
If you prefer, you can listen to the story as an audiobook below. Every weekday until Friday 29 January 2021, we will be adding new parts to the story, which will be available to listen to until next Friday 5 February 2021.
This audiobook is no longer available.
Watch the video
Nizrana Farook's recommended reads
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The Wild Way Home by Sophie Kirtley
While playing in Mandel Forest, Charlie Merriam accidentally travels to the past and meets a Stone Age boy. Together they help each other before Charlie has to find the way back home. I loved Charlie and Harby – they are two of my favourite characters in fiction.
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The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke, illustrated by Ayesha L. Rubio
Milou and her four orphan friends at the Little Tulip Orphanage take matters into their own hands and escape their cruel matron, to go looking for the family they desperately want. This book is set in the 19th century and it whisked me away to wintry, chilly Amsterdam and a mystery to solve in a windmill.
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Boy, Everywhere by AM Dassu
This is about a Syrian refugee’s journey to the UK. From a happy and privileged life in Damascus, Sami travels through several countries, ending up in a detention centre in Manchester and finding hope and stability at last. This book isn’t an easy read – it might make you upset and angry, but it has love and hope in it too.
Read a Q&A with Nizrana Farook
If you could be a storybook character who would you be?
So many to choose from! I don’t know if this is cheating but right at this moment I’d like to be Shifa in my own book, The Boy Who Met a Whale. Simply because the scene where she and her brother meet the whale is one of my favourite scenes to write ever and I wish so much I could have been there for real.
What is the best thing about reading?
For me it’s the fact that it takes you to so many different places and experience things that you may not normally do. And I love that there’s space to bring your own imagination in too as you build up a picture in your head. You can't do that with TV!
What is your all-time favourite book?
From my childhood, it’s Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. I’ve read many books since then that I’ve thought are better, but this book will always have a special place in my heart. It was the book that made me a reader.
What can you do to get better at reading?
I would say choose books that you actually like. Don’t be swayed by what books are on display prominently in shops, or what people say you SHOULD be reading. I think it’s much more fun to browse, read blurbs and make your own discoveries. You get better at reading the more you read, and you’re more likely to stick with reading if you love the books you read.
