Alex Hiam

"Silent Lee and the Adventure of the Side Door Key was quirky and so much fun! It’s a brilliant book for middle graders and a quick read for the YA audience. Both Silent and Raahi are such interesting characters and I was left very much looking forward to the sequel." -BookBookOwl blog

Alex Hiam's first Silent Lee book won a Benjamin Franklin Award for its fun adventures involving a teen sorcerer, and Midwest Book Review called it "original and delightfully entertaining." Teachers and homeschoolers find Silent Lee a fun, non-controversial novel suited for classroom or home reading in mid-elementary through middle school. Readers learn vocabulary, style and literary devices without realizing it's an education, not just a gripping whodunnit. Go to the Webster Press website and into the Teacher's Lounge to access free curriculum materials for teaching ELA including vocabulary, plotting, literary devices, character development and more.

Alex grew up visiting his great grandmother, whose Boston mansion with its secret passages and hidden doors inspired the Girls' Academy of Latin and Alchemy in the Silent Lee books. At Harvard he won the English Department's Arnold Prize and studied magic in the musty stacks of the anthropology library before embarking on his career as a writer, teacher and illustrator. He now lives in the small village of Putney, Vermont, where his teen children review his writing to make sure it meets their exacting standards of excitement and magical fun. Alex has taught at U Mass Amherst, North Star Center for home schooled teens, The Grammar School in Putney, Vermont, and The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont.

Kirkus Reviews called Silent Lee "A pleasant tale for readers who want a female-centric Harry Potter story" and San Francisco Book Review called it "extraordinary, ... readers are held in lasting suspense."