We are thrilled to announce that St Bonaventure's Primary Primary School will be hosting Mevan Babakar on Thursday 13th February. Mevan will be introducing her new book The Bicycle.

Please place your order by Friday 7th of February to ensure your book is signed. Orders placed after this date, may not be signed and may need to be picked up from our shop at 47 Henleaze Road.

To purchase the book

• Add the book to your Cart - do not use the purple Buy with Shop Pay button
• Add your child's name and class via the Add A Note button on the Cart page (email us on info@maxminervas.co.uk  if you are unable to do this)
• Complete your purchase
• Orders placed by 7th Feb can be collected at the school, orders placed after this may have to be collected from our store in Henleaze.

If you are having any questions please email us at info@maxminervas.co.uk 

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Bicycle

The true story of how a simple act of kindness changed a young refugee’s life – from award-winning author Patricia McCormick with Mevan Babakar. For generations, Mevan and her family lived in their beloved Kurdistan. But when they are forced to flee by the Iraqi government, Mevan must leave everything behind.

Her family travels from country to country in search of safety; and with each stop, Mevan feels more and more alone. Until … a stranger’s gift changes everything. Based on Mevan Babakar’s own childhood, this is a moving reminder of how powerful just one act of kindness can be.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mevan Babakar

Mevan (pronounced “me” + “van”) is a writer and social entrepreneur.

She is the News and Information Credibility Lead at Google, working to tackle misinformation globally, and to support journalists.

In 2023 Mevan was selected by the Obama Foundation as an Obama Leader for Europe.

Mevan was previously deputy CEO of Full Fact, the UK’s independent fact checking charity where she worked on the problems mis/disinformation for seven years.

She founded Full Fact’s automated fact checking team which built AI technologies to help scale the work of fact checkers. This work went on to win the Google AI Impact Challenge. The tools that were developed are now being used by fact checkers around the world. Mevan also sat on the board of the International Fact Checking Network, which oversees 300 fact checking organisations worldwide.

Outside of Full Fact, Mevan served as a trustee for the UK for UNHCR, the UK arm of the UN refugee agency, was Chair of the Board at Democracy Club which empowers voters and everyday democracy in the UK and also launched the UK’s first ever National Voter Registration Day which has since registered millions of young people to vote.

Born in Baghdad to Kurdish parents her family fled Saddam’s genocide of the Kurds in the early 90s. Mevan was featured in the New York Times when she took a two-month sabbatical in 2019 to retrace the steps she took as a child refugee. She made headlines around the world when she found and thanked the aid worker who had helped her 24 years ago. He had left a big impression when he had generously helped her family and gifted her a bike.

In June 2024 this story was published in the US by HarperCollins as a children’s book, The Bicycle. The UK release will take place in February 2025.