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What Lexie Did

by Emma Shevah, illustrated by Helen Crawford-White

Interest age: 9 to 11
Reading age: 8+

Published by Chicken House, 2018

  • Chapter books
  • Coming-of-age

About this book

Lexie lives in London with her huge Greek Cypriot family, spending her time eating delicious food, admiring brilliant women in magazines, and speaking in a secret language with her best friend, her cousin Eleni.

But things are about to get a lot more complicated for Lexie when she's caught between telling the truth and lying – and what she decides to do ends up splitting her family apart. Can she figure out how to bring them back together again?

Emma Shevah has wonderfully tackled difficult questions about honesty in a sophisticated, complex way – but that's never at the expense of being brilliantly funny and entertaining. Young readers will find themselves flying through the pages, desperate to find out what Lexie will do.

Lexie herself is a fascinating character – she's always likeable, but Shevah never shies away from showing her more negative traits, from jealousy to selfishness. That all pays off, though, creating someone very relatable who is caught in a dilemma that feels all too sick-in-the-stomach real.

With a distinctive style, charming illustrations and heaps of thought-provoking moments, What Lexie Did really is a must-read.

About the author

Emma Shevah is half-Thai and half-Irish, but was born and raised in London. This diverse heritage influences her writing, which is typically about identity and what makes us who we are. She writes funny, deep books that she hopes will make readers think.

Dream on Amber is about fatherless, half-Japanese Amber Miyamoto, who invents an imaginary dad to help her with her escalating problems. Dara Palmer’s Major Drama is about an adopted Cambodian girl who wants the lead role in a play and has to take matters into her own hands to achieve it. And What Lexie Did follows a Greek Cypriot girl who tells a huge lie that splits her family apart and separates her from her cousin and best friend, Eleni. Hello Baby Mo!, for early readers, follows school boy Adam dealing with an exasperating new sibling, and was published in 2019. Emma lives in Brighton.

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