I’ve just heard that FAB Club 3 – The Big Match is a finalist in the Wishing Shelf Book Awards.
I love these awards as they are judged by teachers and children.
FAB Club 3 is the final book in my chapter book series about standing up to bullying. You can get it at all good bookshops and at the Leslies in Lyttelton... ;-)
In 2015 we went to live in the Basque country to learn Spanish because it was a region of Spain where English wasn’t widely spoken. Our planned year turned into two and we learned a lot of Spanish and a tiny amount of Basque. It is a very difficult language to learn as it has no relation to any of the Latin languages (or any language anywhere). But what an amazing place and culture.
I adored the small town we lived in (Hondarribia) and collected my sketches of life there into a book, A Basque Diary.
Whilst we were living there I started work on my trilogy of books about bullying aimed at kids 8 to 12 years old: FAB (Friends Against Bullying) Club. I shared the book with my Intercambio Spanish/English learning group as the reading level was good for many of them. One of my friends in the group (Itziar) is a teacher and she shared it with another friend (Eneko) who spent a lot of time reading stories to children. Both thought that the book would work really well in Basque (bullying is also a problem for Basque schools) and they began working on a translation.
In 2017 we came home to New Zealand and Eneko sent the book and its 2018 sequel (FAB Club 2 - Friends Against Cyberbullying) to the Basque publisher, Elkar, who have bookstores all over the region.
After a little back and forth, Elkar signed up to publish the two existing books in Basque as well as the third one (FAB Club 3 - The Big Match) which I published this year. They have just released the first two and I was really excited when Itziar found them in one of Elkar’s bookshops in downtown Bilbao.
Elkar contacted me to ask me to record a promotional video for the second book. Cool!
In Basque.
I find even reading the language so hard. Which is why it took me nearly a week to get close to being able to pronounce the translation of the script I wrote. Here it is – I am sure anyone who can speak Basque will wince at my pronunciation, but I tried.
It has been a really rewarding experience working with the publisher and my Basque friends. My hope is that the book ends up in the hands of a lot of Basque children and that it helps them have a better time at school than I did between the ages of 8 and 12.
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Today is the official launch of FAB Club 3 - The Big Match. It is the third and final book in the series about the Friends Against Bullying club. The first book came out four years ago and it has been fun to develop the characters and tie up all the loose ends: something that never happens in real life.
My niece (now 11) loved the first book and the second one about cyber-bullying. When I asked her what she’d like to see in the third book, she didn’t hesitate to say “romance”! My 8 year old nephew wanted to read about football (those are the only books he loves reading). I had to please them both. At the middle grade level I didn’t have to get too graphic with the romance, thank heavens, but I sure got tired of drawing footballs!
Despite (or because) of the constraints of the storyline, I’m really happy with how the book turned out. All the bullies from the original book have been turned around and all we are left with is an adult bully in this last book. It’s no real spoiler to say that he gets his comeuppance. I only wish that could happen to some of the bullies I see abusing their positions of power now.
FAB Club 3 is online and in bookshops now (Search for ISBN: 978-0-473-50467-0).
Or ask for it at your local library.
The FAB Club Advance Reading Team are up to chapter three of the third and final book in the middle grade series about the friends who stand up to bullying. It's not too late to join in. Here are the first three chapters:
If you want to help out and be credited in the book, drop me a line at FAB@alexhallatt.com.
