A bit more information about my books and the workshops I offer:
SOLD - What will it take to find freedom?
Fifteen year-old Roza is told she's leaving Albania for better things in the UK. But when she arrives she discovers this is a lie. Her father has sold her into slavery to get out of debt.
Forced to work as an unpaid servant, beaten and abused, Roza doesn't think life can get much worse...until she escapes
Selected by EmpathyLab for the 2024 ReadforEmpathy collection https://www.empathylab.uk/RFE
'Compulsively readable, harrowing yet hopeful, SOLD shines a fierce light into the shadows of child trafficking.' THE GUARDIAN
'Powerful, gritty and engrossing.' Miriam Halahmy
My 60-minute 'Talking about Trafficking' workshop is aimed at high school students. After introductions the session begins with a short factual film about human trafficking. A quiz follows which challenges young people's assumptions about trafficking, leading to a discussion around the group's answers and the issues raised. I explain how I came to write SOLD and ask the students to think about:
The importance of research
How writing a book like SOLD can raise awareness of the subject
The ways anti trafficking organisations are working to bring about change
'A visit from Cardiff author Sue Barrow brought the hard-hitting subject of human trafficking to life in an engaging and sensitive way. Our Year 9 pupils were gripped by her reading from SOLD, and after the quiz that followed the hall was a flurry of hands. Educational and entertaining, I can thoroughly recommend a workshop with this author.'
K Thomas, Curriculum Leader for English. Bishopston Comprehensive School, Gower.
Secondary schools in Wales may also be interested to know that this session supports the Statements of What Matters under the Humanities area of Learning and Experience in the new Curriculum for Wales.
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Keeping Secrets
At five feet eleven and with frizzy ginger curls, Ceri Keeping has great plans for her sixteenth birthday. But it seems nothing will go right.
Ceri is adopted and the birthday card she really longs for - the one she has never received - is missing again this year. Now she is determined to to find her real mother - even if it means unearthing long-kept family secrets.
'A gem of a book, about growing up, finding out who you really are, about your past and your future.' GWales with permission from the Wales Book Council
'A first novel which evokes the uncertainties and anxieties of the teenager's world with insight and perception.' Yvonne Coppard
Hometown History of Cardiff
Hometown History of the Welsh Valleys
Written for children aged 8 - 14 years, these books bring local history alive by investigating the people and events that have shaped Cardiff and the Valleys. A bit like the Horrible Histories but less gory!