World Book Day 2025: stories that open difficult conversations
Archive article, reviewed September 2026. World Book Day celebrates the pleasure of reading. It can also be a chance for schools to introduce stories that help children think about friendship, freedom and what to do when someone is frightened.
Freedom Charity uses two novels by Aneeta Prem MBE to support conversations about forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). They are stories first, not manuals or substitutes for trained safeguarding staff. Their value is that young readers can discuss a character’s situation without being asked to reveal their own.
But It’s Not Fair: recognising forced marriage
But It’s Not Fair follows young people whose friendships are tested by family pressure and the threat of forced marriage. Readers can consider the difference between an arranged marriage and a forced marriage, why free consent matters and how to tell a trusted adult when someone may be at risk.
Cut Flowers: understanding the risk of FGM
Cut Flowers approaches FGM through friendship, family secrets and a young person’s growing concern for another girl’s safety. It gives readers a way into a subject that can be difficult to discuss directly. A child worried about FGM needs a safe adult and an appropriate safeguarding response, not a public classroom disclosure.
For teachers and safeguarding leads
The books can sit alongside Freedom Charity’s separate forced-marriage and FGM lesson resources, which have received the PSHE Association Quality Mark. The novels themselves are not described as Quality Mark-accredited. Staff should select age-appropriate material, plan a safe way to handle questions and follow their school’s safeguarding procedure if a pupil discloses a concern.
For a visit or staff session, see Book a Visit. For current information on warning signs and routes to help, use Freedom’s helpline and support page. Do not confront family members or arrange mediation where forced marriage or FGM may be a risk.
Buy a book or support book donations
Freedom Charity reports donating more than 100,000 copies of its two books cumulatively. That is a distribution figure, not a measure of learning outcomes or safeguarding results. Buying a book supports the charity’s work, but this article does not promise a fixed number of donated copies for each purchase.
Buy But It’s Not Fair · Buy Cut Flowers · Donate to Freedom · Ask about sponsoring books for schools.
First published for World Book Day 2025. Reviewed in September 2026 for safeguarding, book and donation wording.