Student book review of ‘Piglettes’ and an interview with Clementine Beauvais by Ella.

Ella, Year 8, was tasked with writing a book review, but she went beyond expectations by reaching out to the author for an interview. Her curiosity and initiative led to a unique perspective on the novel "Piglettes." In this article, Ella shares her thoughts on the book, offering a fresh and personal insight into the story, the characters, and her conversation with the author. 

Here’s what she has to say about "Piglettes":

When my dad first sent me ‘Piglettes’ on a warm July afternoon,  I wasn’t sure it was for me. 3 girls gatecrashing a royal French party, their only transportation old bikes? That sounds crazy, how could it ever be relatable? But as I turned over the pages and breathed in the smell of a fresh book, I laughed out loud, smiled and cried with every page folded over or satisfying crack of the book’s spine. 

It follows three teenage girls, Mirielle, Hakima and Astrid, who were voted the three ugliest girls in their school. They have a dream, to see the sights of Paris and prove that the stupid pig pageant doesn’t affect them. They navigate complicated families, discrimination and accidents that can break apart people’s lives. 

I loved it so much that I interviewed the amazing author Clementine Beauvais who is a lecturer at the University of York and has a passion for children’s literature. Here are a few of my questions that she answered.

If you could give one piece of advice to yourself at the age of the Piglettes what would it be? 

The advice is in there actually – when Mirielle says that she knows life will be easier when she’s 25. I wrote the book when I was 25 so I picked that age very deliberately. So my advice would be that will all be very, very far away sooner than you’d think.

Do you think the book would have been different if you set it in England?

The book would probably be quite different if it was set in England. Would they be trying to gate-crash a royal party? But actually I think France and England share a lot of characteristics geographically and also culturally. If I were to set it in England I would definitely make the girls northerners, since I’ve lived in York for 8 years now and I would love to describe them cycling through the moors. So perhaps they’d be coming from somewhere like Whitby…

Did you intentionally make the bike ride to Paris a metaphor for growing up?

I think any road trip, especially in children’s or young adult literature, ends up having a kind of metaphorical value. Certainly it was very important to me that, during the trip, Mireille realises that it doesn't matter who her 'real' dad is – the only dad she's ever known is the nice guy who looks after her everyday, takes her to school and lives in her house. To me, that ending was always very clear in my head. Same for Hakima's journey – I wanted her to grow less shy, more self-assured. Anyone who embarks on a trip like that in real life will grow in some ways – I think all I did was to make that growth process perhaps a little larger than life...

What was your inspiration for the book? 

My inspiration for the book was a combination of news stories at the time (appalling stuff about cyberbullying), feeling like writing about my family's hometown of Bourg-en-Bresse (a real town, I promise) and a general wish to write something funny, plus lots of other thoughts whose origins are difficult to pinpoint. Inspiration for a novel is never just one spark anyway – it's a mixture of things. There's spontaneous ideas, but not actually very many – most of the work is about spinning them into a structured story, believable characters, and all of that ends up generating new ideas, many of which end up being discarded.