How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

A boy who experiences the Bosnian War and finds the secret to survival in language and stories is bound to dazzle a whole new readership. Aleksandar Krsmanovic, Grandpa Slavko’s stories endow life in Višegrad with a kaleidoscopic brilliance. Neighbors, friends, and family past and present take on a mythic quality; the River Drina courses through town like the pulse of life itself. So when his grandfather dies suddenly, Aleksandar promises to carry on the tradition.

Phoning A Dead Man

When John, a British demolitions expert, is supposedly killed blowing up a building in Siberia, his fiance Annie insists on investigating, despite being in a wheelchair, and John’s teenage sister Hayley goes along and finds that the Russian Mafia is involved.

The Little Boy Star: An Allegory Of The Holocaust

A young Jewish boy is given a star to wear. At first he is proud of the decoration, but soon finds the star overshadowing him no one sees the boy, only the star. Lonely, frightened, and helpless, he watches as other star-wearers are led away into the night. This affecting allegory, rich with symbolism, educates children about the events of the Holocaust in a way that young minds can easily grasp.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

A total of 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942-1944; less than 100 survived. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears. The ghetto of Terezin (Theresienstadt), located in the hills outside Prague, was an unusual concentration camp in that it was created to cover up the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Billed as the “Fuhrer’s gift to the Jews, ” this “model ghetto” was the site of a Red Cross inspection visit in 1944. With its high proportion of artists and intellectuals, culture flourished in the ghetto – alongside starvation, disease, and constant dread of transports to the death camps of the east.

The Convicts

After seeing his father hauled off to debtor’s prison, Tom Tin sets out to take revenge on Mr. Goodfellow, the man responsible for his family’s misfortunes. But the fog-filled London streets are teeming with sinister characters. Tom encounters a blind man who scavenges the riverbed for treasure—and wants what Tom digs up; Worms, a body snatcher who reveals a shocking surprise; and a nasty gang of young pickpockets who mistake Tom for someone ominously known as the Smasher. And ultimately, Tom comes up against the cruel hand of the law. Accused of murder, Tom is given a seven-year sentence. He is to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land with other juvenile convicts.

Sense Pass King: A Story From Cameroon

Despite a jealous king’s repeated attempts to get rid of her, Ma’antah continually manages to outwit him and proves herself worthy of the name Sense Pass King.