A WORLD famous children’s author has congratulated an Enniskillen P7 pupil on the release of her debut novel.
Eleven-year-old Mennah Abdalqader, who moved to the county three years ago from Palestine and attends Enniskillen Integrated Primary School, has published her first book, “Into The Tunnel Of Murder”.
Mennah’s favourite author is Jacqueline Wilson who has written more than 100 book which have sold about 40 million copies in the UK and been translated into 34 languages.
And upon hearing of Mennah’s debut book, a spy novel titled “Into The Tunnel Of Murder”, Jacqueline contacted the Herald to pass on her congratulations.
Jacqueline said: “Mennah – huge congratulations on getting your first novel published. ‘Into the tunnel of Murder’ is a brilliant title – it immediately makes you want to read on and find out what happens.
“Your family must feel very pleased and proud. Good luck with your future writing career.”
Mennah, not surprisingly, is delighted at becoming a published author.
She said: “I’ve always wanted to write a book. I love reading so just reading all the books by authors, I felt that I would really like to write one myself.
“There’s a thing called self-publishing where you can just self-publish your writing on Amazon – I think it’s called Kindle Direct Publishing and Amazon publishes the book for you.
“The book is mainly about spies and agencies. One of those agencies – which basically has the main characters – have a big task where they have to go into a tunnel and try to win a big treasure chest of riches.
“They have to do this by finding clues and trying to solve riddles. It was easy for me to conjure up those riddles because I like riddles myself – I know and do a lot of them.
“My parents are very proud. When I told them that I was writing a book, they were kind of like ‘well we expected this’ because I’ve always liked writing.
“I’ve already started writing a second book and I’m hoping to get it published before I finish P7.
“My teachers and friends are all very surprised. They’re like, ‘wow you wrote a book’. Some of them have bought it and I’m so happy about that.”
Mennah’s P7 teacher, Aisling Hobbs says the school is delighted with her success.
She added: “She’s been signing copies of the book for teachers and she’s very kindly donated two of her books to the school library – which she has signed and dated.
“We can’t wait to see her second book. I think her first one is definitely a book we need to read to the class this year.”
