Year 6 blog:

Year 6 Author- Ele Fountain

“Every book begins with an idea.”

Today, year 6 met with Ele Fountain to talk about her award winning fiction book, “Boy 87”. A story about a young refugee struggling for survival. Ele moved to Ethiopia in 2014 and noticed the increase in the amount of refugees and asylum seekers on the news. She wanted to write a book to show the tragedy from one person's perspective, rather than numbers. She wanted her readers to be able to understand empathy about how these people are so ordinary but have to go through unique events. 

She talked us through what happened in the country of Ethiopia and how the government was controlling it’s people and persecuting them and how if they wanted to escape, they could only take a few personal belongings and had to leave their whole life behind: home, friends, family, toys and much more. Not knowing when they were or if they would ever return. She also shared with us how over half of refugees are under 18 and travel alone. It was this idea that inspired her to write Boy 87 and create her main character Shif and his journey to asylum. Ele wanted to write not only to inspire but to educate.

“It feels like the course of my life is shifting, like the sand is being dragged beneath my feet” Shif from a Boy 87 page 3

Ele then told us all about her writing and publishing process about how your first version is called a manuscript, that then gets passed onto a publisher and a book illustrator. But you have to write the draft many many times, editing again and again to make sure it is as good as it can be, just like we do in school. She also gave us a history of facts about how women in the past were not allowed to write books and had to give themselves fake names so they were able to get their books published!  

We had then had time to ask Ele lots of questions and she even signed some of our Boksburg for us! It was an amazing experience and we hope we get some more author visits soon!

If you’re interested in Ele Fountain as an author, her other stories are Wild, Lost, Melt, Fake and her new book Storm Child.