SE CHRONICLE 684

28 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Patrick Maxwell, Head of School, arranged for Sima Kotecha to visit Teddies last term and gave us this report: BBC Newsnight’s UK Editor Sima Kotecha came to Teddies right at the end of Gaudy Week to give an engaging and wide-ranging talk on the myriad experiences she has had over the past two decades as one of the country’s most exciting young journalists. With a wide range of questions assembled by the Lower Sixth year group and teachers, the discussion ranged from surviving Afghan warzones to the experience of interviewing American presidents, with some inspiring advice all along the way. Newsnight

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Leia Zhu, Fifth Former The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger The Catcher in the Rye is the marmite of literary classics. Love it or loathe it, it makes a profound impact (it even got banned in several countries!). The book begins unconventionally by proclaiming that it is not like ‘that David Copperfield kind of crap’. Having found the language and storytelling in David Copperfield a little overwhelming, this piqued my interest immediately. By including relatable themes such as teenage life and the struggle of growing up, written in a somewhat controversial format, The Catcher in the Rye is an extremely memorable read.

Monica Islam, Teacher of Chemistry and Head of Examinations The Pearl by John Steinbeck I first read John Steinbeck’s novella The Pearl as a teenager and have often gone back to it for a nostalgic afternoon read. It is the story of a fisherman, Kino, his wife, Juana, and their baby, Coyotito, written as a parable. I love the simplicity of the tale: the ideas that run through it are pertinent even today, 70 years after it was written. Kino finds a great pearl which brings with it a chance of fortune and opportunity for his family who, before the finding of this great pearl, are the centre of his world. It is a story of greed, sacrifice and moral dilemma, beautifully written in evocative language; when I read it, I can hear and smell the sea.

Virginia Macgregor, Director of Wellbeing Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell Hamnet is one of my favourite novels from the past few years. Clever, beautiful and heartbreaking. Maggie O’Farrell imagines the story of Shakespeare’s wife and the loss of one of her twins, Hamnet. The novel weaves together fact, fiction and magic and cleverly echoes several of Shakespeare’s plays. It offers a brilliant evocation, in full sensory detail, of sixteenth-century Stratford and London, and the fact that it’s set during the plague makes for fascinating parallels to our modern pandemic.