Vermonia #4

The quest to save Vermonia continues! Fabulous manga artwork highlights this tale of four friends who hold the fate of three worlds in their hands.The Four pillars supporting life in the Turtle Realm— fire, wind, water, and thunder— are under threat from General Uro’s army. Mel and her guardian, Ruka, remain imprisioned in the castle of Captain Acidulous. To rescue Mel and protect the pillars, Naomi, Doug, and Jim must dive deep into the Oritsa Ocean and join forces with the Aqami People. In this exciting fourth episode, the tribes of the Turtle Realm, led by the Blue Star Warriors, confront Uro’s dark Yami magic in two epic battles.

Song For A Princess

When the birds in the palace garden realize the princess is sad, they decide to offer their best to make her smile again. The peacock tries first, proudly displaying his beautiful plumes, but the princess barely lifts her head to look. Then the magpie brings silver and gold, but she only asks him whose jewels he stole. A banquet from the kingfisher, the jackdaws’ aerial show — nothing helps. Then the wren perches on her balcony and sings a soothing story full of all the happy words he’s been collecting. “Please never leave, little wren,” the princess says, “and I shall never be lonely.”

The Rebels’ Assault

Decimus Rex has escaped Arena Primus in the company of a fellow slave, Olu Umbika. Together, they manage to board a slave ship and sail away from the trials and Slavious Doom. But now their four friends are being used as bait to get them to return. Decimus and Olu must reach the Suvius Tower to rescue their friends before they get captured themselves!

Vermonia #3

The quest to save Vermonia continues! Fabulous manga artwork highlights this tale of four friends who hold the fate of three worlds in their hands. In part three of the Vermonia series, General Uro’s reign of terror spreads through the Turtle Realm. When the three skateboarders from the planet Blue Star–Doug, Naomi, and Jim—-are brought to a village burning under the evil Uro’s command, Naomi merges with her warrior spirit, the red phoenix, to help put out the flames. Now that the friends have the power of their guardian animals, they draw closer to finding and freeing Mel, who is trapped in a bubble guarded by one of General Uro’s brainwashed soldiers.

A Long Walk To Water

Combining simple, economical prose with a profound awareness of the hardships that life sometimes brings to young people, Linda Sue Park has crafted a suspenseful, accessible novel that goes beyond newspaper headlines to illuminate human experience. Includes an afterword from the author and one from Salva Dut. A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 2