Three young courageous women fighting for freedom…
Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, Evelyn, May & Nell join the fight for the vote.
Evelyn is 17 and joins the Suffragettes when she discovers that she will not be allowed to follow her older brother to university and instead is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart. She vows to pay the ultimate price for women’s freedom.
May is only 15 and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who’s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.
But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May & Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice?
For author Sally Nicholls, her book, Things A Bright Girl Can Do, covers a number of themes as she explained: ‘’I wanted this book to feel like an Edwardian children’s book, with police brutality, trenches and hunger strikes. It’s a book about fighting for your basic rights, but it’s also two love stories and three coming-of-age stories.’’
Sally recently hosted a virtual author talk for our students at Wykham Park Academy and Futures Institute. The talk is one of many taking place in schools across Aspirations Academies Trust through our collaboration with Penguin Random House.
Students were so impressed that they wrote to Sally to let her know what their favourite moments from her wonderful book and to thank her for taking the time to speak to them.
Sally Nicholls
Here below are the lovely thank you messages sent from our students to Sally.
Sachin: My favourite part of the interview was finding out about your favourite
characters and how you did all of your book research. You must be really proud of yourself of all of your achievements in life. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate it. I hope you have more successful books in the future.
Theo: My favourite part of the book was when the suffragette riot took place
because it was exciting and Nell was introduced in that scene. Thank you for talking to us, it was very interesting finding out how you thought of the characters and wrote your book.
Casper: My favourite part of the interview was finding out about your tips on how to become an author. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us all.
Leah: My favourite part of the interview was finding out your favourite person/character and thank you for coming on the meet and reading part of the story to us I really enjoyed it.
Jacob: My favourite part of the book so far is when Evelyn has to go on hunger strike. This is because it shows how determined she is and how much she has progressed as a character since joining the suffragettes. Thank you for the interview.
Sam: My favourite part of the book was when Evelyn was in prison and showed us how strong she is inside by not eating for a long time. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
Mani: My favourite part of the book is when something happened. Thank you for taking the time to read to us.
Patrik: Thank you for reading to us.
Katy: My favourite part of the book was finding about how to become an author and thanks for reading to us.
Jenny: Thank you for reading to us.
Leon: My favourite part of the book was the prison scene, it had a lot of description and it interested me a lot.
Zach: Thank you so much for having the call with us (my sister was very jealous when she heard). You have definitely inspired me to read more about history. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this it was so cool to listen to a real author.