Penguin Readers Level 4: You Must Be Layla (ELT Graded Reader): Abridged Edition

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online.

Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.

The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.

You Must Be Layla, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly.

Layla is a 13-year old Muslim girl. She has just moved to one of the best schools in Brisbane. Layla is clever and funny, and loves making things, but some of the students are not kind to her. How can Layla show that she is a good student and make friends?

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Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese-born Australian writer, broadcaster and award-winning social advocate with a background in mechanical engineering.


Yassmin founded her first organization, Youth Without Borders, at the age of sixteen, published her debut memoir, Yassmin's Story, with Penguin Random House Australia at age twenty-four, and in 2019 followed up with her first fiction book for young readers, You Must Be Layla, which she is adapting for screen. She was also selected for the 2020 Soho Theatre Writers' Lab in London, as well as for the prestigious 2021 Australia Council Keesing Studio Writers Residency in Paris.


An advocate for the empowerment of women, youth and people of colour, Yassmin has been awarded numerous awards for her advocacy, including the 2018 Young Voltaire Award for Free Speech. Yassmin has travelled to over twenty countries speaking to governments, NGOs and multinational companies on a range of topics including unconscious bias, resilience and inclusive leadership. Her TED talk, 'What does my headscarf mean to you?', has been viewed over two million times and was chosen as one of TED's top ten ideas of 2015. Yassmin's critically acclaimed essays have been published in numerous anthologies, including the Griffith Review, the bestselling It's Not About the Burqa and New Daughters of Africa. Her words can also be found in publications like the Guardian, Teen Vogue, The New York Times, The Independent and Glamour.


Yassmin's broadcasting portfolio is diverse: she presented the national TV show Australia Wide, a podcast on becoming an F1 driver and created Hijabistas, a series looking at the modest fashion scene in Australia. Yassmin is a regular contributor to the BBC, Al Jazeera, TRT and Monocle 24, and has co-hosted The Guilty Feminist.


Outside advocacy, she worked as an engineer on oil and gas rigs for four years and is an internationally accredited F1 journalist.