Evie and Maryam’s Little Lies

In this absorbing sequel to the award-winning Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree, Janeen Hayat once again takes her heroines – now firm friends – out of their comfort zone by placing them in new situations. Maryam has won a scholarship for ‘disadvantaged young people’ to a prestigious boarding school but is nervous about how she will fit in with her more privileged peers. Meanwhile, Evie is excited that Our Family Tree, the play she and Maryam wrote about their great-grandmothers, has been selected for the Bill Jeffrey Youth Fellowship, with the chance for it to be performed in the West End. But she faces tough competition, and when she exaggerates her chances of success to her parents, things rapidly spiral out of control.

Maryam and Evie are two of the most believable twelve-year-old characters I’ve encountered in a long time. Their anxieties about navigating unfamiliar social situations – or even conversations with their own parents – feel totally real. Hayat makes them both deeply likeable, whilst showing how they can end up making unwise decisions with unfortunate repercussions. As the title suggests, this novel is all about how small lies told in the heat of the moment can snowball, and the characters’ worries about this feel all-consuming in a way that young readers are likely to recognise.

Hayat also explores a range of other themes, particularly related to social justice, showing how well-meaning initiatives are not always enough to overcome barriers to inclusion. And, as in her first novel, she weaves in a backstory involving a boy called Bilal who travels to England from Karachi in 1956. But this time, the twist connecting Bilal’s story to Evie and Maryam’s is a genuine surprise for the reader, and is rather moving in its exploration of assimilation and what might be lost as a result. The novel avoids an overly neat resolution but does leave us cautiously hopeful that Maryam and Evie will make the best of whatever new situations they face. If there is one key message for young readers to take away from this heart-warming book, it is perhaps Maryam’s eventual realisation that ‘awkwardness won’t kill you’.