Hidden
By: Miriam Halahmy
Publisher: Meadowside Fiction
Published: 2011
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 253
ISBN-13: 9781845395230
Subjects: Immigrants; Fiction; Iraqis; Political refugees; Gangs; Racism
Description: Hidden" is the first in a cycle of three novels set on Hayling Island, off the South Coast of England, near the Isle of Wight. Each novel is stand alone but a minor character in the previous novel becomes the major character in the next. "Hidden" is a brave novel, tackling the issues surrounding Middle-Eastern immigration into the UK through the eyes of a British teenager. "Hidden" is a literary, coming-of-age novel dealing with judgement, courage, preconceptions and the difficulty of sorting right from wrong. "Hidden" is humorous, yet hard-hitting and speaks with a voice which teenagers will connect with. Fourteen year old Alix lives at the bottom of Hayling Island near the beach. It is a quiet backwater, far removed from world events such as war, terror and refugees. Alix has never even given a thought to asylum seekers, she has enough problems of her own: Dad has a new life that doesn't include her, Grandpa is dead and Mum is helpless and needy. But when Alix sees the local gang shouting racist abuse at Samir, the foreign boy in her class, she finds herself sticks up for him and they become friends. Alix begins to learn about the life Samir has left behind in Iraq, which isn't all about suicide bombers but centred on playing football in the street with friends, going to school and helping his Mum with the shopping. Then one day on the beach Alix and Samir pull a drowning man out of the incoming tide: Mohammed, an illegal immigrant and a student. Mohammed has been tortured by the militia in Iraq for helping the allied forces and has spent all his money to escape. Alone, helpless, and desperate not to be deported, Mohammed's destiny lies in Alix and Samir's hands. Samir knows that life as an immigrant can be cruel, but he begs Alix to help him hide Mohammed. However, hiding an injured refugee is fraught with difficulties and Lindy Bellows, the bad girl at school is already sniffing around. Lindy's brother, Terrence, is in the racist gang. How long before Lindy gives them away? Faced with the biggest moral dilemma of her life, what will Alix do, and who can she trust? As Alix weighs up her own commitments versus those of a helpless stranger; human rights issues versus the law; and finally what you can see versus what is hidden, the reader is taken on an extraordinarily gripping journey through a moral minefield of decisions to discover, with Alix, that knowing right from wrong isn't always easy. -- Book Description.