Author: Richard Clift

Richard Clifthttp://wowlit.org/communities/members/richard/

Sugar Kid: A Story of the Girl from the Last Century Told

The Book of Olga Thunder “Sugar baby” recorded it with the words of Stella Nudolskoy, whose childhood coincided with the end of the 30’s – early 40’s in the Soviet Union. This is a very personal and poignant story of how five-year-Ale, happily growing up in a loving family, suddenly finds her daughter “an enemy of the people” and gets into a terrible, incomprehensible situation: after the arrest of their father and his mother is sent to a camp in Kyrgyzstan as CHSIR (family members traitor to the motherland) and ESR (socially dangerous elements).

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 7, Issue 1

Soldier Doll

When Elizabeth spots an antique doll dressed in a soldier’s uniform at a local garage sale, she thinks that it might be a good last-minute birthday gift for her dad, who’s about to ship out to the Middle East. In finding the doll, Elizabeth has become the latest link in a chain of love and loss that began in England during World War I, when a young woman gave the doll to her fiancée before he left to join the fighting in Europe.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 7, Issue 1

Journey

A lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and through it escapes into a world where wonder, adventure, and danger abound. Red marker in hand, she creates a boat, a balloon, and a flying carpet that carry her on a spectacular journey toward an uncertain destiny. When she is captured by a sinister emperor, only an act of tremendous courage and kindness can set her free.

Going Over

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city with a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn’t the only thing that is divided. Ada lives among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg in West Berlin. Stefan lives in East Berlin, in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance for a life together lies in a high-risk escape

Diamond Boy

“Diamonds for everyone.” That’s what fifteen-year-old Patson Moyo hears when his family arrives in the Marange diamond fields. Soon Patson is working in the mines himself, hoping find his girazi–the priceless that stone that could change his life forever. But when the government’s soldiers comes to Marange, Patson’s world is shattered. Set against the backdrop of President Robert Mugabe’s brutal regime in Zimbabwe, Diamond Boy is the story of young man who succumbs to greed but finds his way out through a transformative journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister, in search of freedom, and in search of himself.

Digby Differs

Digby has always felt a little different from everyone else. For some reason he’s just never felt like he belonged. He longs for a place that felt like home, and one day his yearning sends him on a journey of discovery that takes him to a place where the air is different, and there’s a rushing sound quite unlike anything he’s ever heard before. At last, he finds a place where ”feeling different” feels just right.

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist K. G. Campbell.

Haiti My Country: Poems by Haitian Schoolchildren

For several months, Quebec illustrator Roge prepared a series of portraits of Haitian children. Students of Camp Perrin wrote that accompanying poems, which create, with flowing consistency, Haiti My Country. These teenaged poets use the Haitian landscape as their easel. The nature that envelops them is quite clearly their main subject. While misery often storms through Haiti in the form of earthquakes, cyclones, or floods, these young men and women see their surrounding nature as assurance for a joyful, confident future.