Fiction genre
In Laos, twelve-year-old Tam must work at a bear farm where bears are cruelly caged and milked for their bile, but when a familiar cub is brought to the farm, Tam will do anything to free both the cub, and himself.
Join the discussion of Moon Bear as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.
Little Kai is brought to the orphanage run by Bell, a fearsome Englishwoman whose dedication to her charges is unflinching. There, an older child, Pax, immediately takes Kai under his wing. It soon becomes apparent that Kai is a brilliant child, and given the right circumstances, could go on to achieve great things. Penniless and living amidst political strife and constant uncertainty, the children are nonetheless taken care of and protected, until Bell dies and they are left on their own. Pax is determined to keep Kai safe, and to make sure he gets the education he deserves. But life on the streets is tough, and dangerous.
In China, a foundling girl with a deformed hand raised in secret by an American woman must navigate China’s strict adoption system when she is torn away from the only family she has ever known.
A bitterly jealous brother, a cold-hearted husband, a monk who mistakes desire for piety, a fraudulent merchant who meets his match in a supernatural river otter, a samurai who makes the ultimate sacrifice — the motives and pathologies underlying these traditional Japanese folktale characters are explored with haunting results.
In Tarreton, where the rich have all the magic they wish and the poor can barely afford a spell to heat their homes, twelve-year-old Isaveth’s father is accused of murdering an influential citizen and Isaveth, aided by eccentric street boy Quiz, tries to solve the magical murder mystery before her father is executed.
Greta is the Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, a superpower formed of modern-day Canada. She is also a Child of Peace, a hostage held by the de facto ruler of the world, the great Artificial Intelligence, Talis. The hostages are Talis’s strategy to keep the peace: if her country enters a war, Greta dies. The system has worked for centuries. Parents don’t want to see their children murdered.
For some kids summer is a sun-soaked season of fun. But for Steve, it’s just another season of worries. Worries about his sick newborn baby brother who is fighting to survive, worries about his parents who are struggling to cope, even worries about the wasp’s nest looming ominously from the eaves. So when a mysterious wasp queen invades his dreams, offering to “fix” the baby, Steve thinks his prayers have been answered.
The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself—for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways.
In a dystopian future where gender selection has led to girls outnumbering boys 5 to 1 marriage is arranged based on a series of tests. It’s Sudasa’s turn to pick a husband through this ‘fair’ method, but she’s not sure she wants to be a part of it.
Ali and his fiancée Zeynep dream about leaving their home in Anatolia and building a new life together in Canada. But their homeland is controlled by the Turkish government, which is on the brink of war with Britain and Russia. And although Ali finds passage to Canada to work, he is forced to leave Zeynep behind until he can earn enough to bring her out to join him. When the First World War breaks out and Canada joins Britain, Ali is declared an enemy alien.
Join the discussion of Dance of the Banished as well as other books centered around relocation on our My Take/Your Take page.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 8, Issue 2