Materials from Europe
Inspired by real events, master storyteller Eve Bunting recounts the harrowing yet hopeful story of a family, a war–and a dazzling discovery.
This book has been included in WOW’s Kids Taking Action Booklist. For our current list, visit our Boolist page under Resources in the green navigation bar.
A 2009 Caldecott Honor Book. Having fled from war in their troubled homeland, a boy and his family are living in poverty in a strange country. Food is scarce, so when the boy’s father brings home a map instead of bread for supper, at first the boy is furious. But when the map is hung on the wall, it floods their cheerless room with color. As the boy studies its every detail, he is transported to exotic places without ever leaving the room, and he eventually comes to realize that the map feeds him in a way that bread never could. Based on the artist’s childhood memories of World War II.
Poignant and chilling, this allegory is an astonishing, powerful, and timely story about refugees, xenophobia, racism, multiculturalism, social politics, and human rights. When the people of an island find a man sitting on their shore, they immediately reject him because he is different. Fearful to the point of delusional paranoia, the islanders lock him in a goat pen, refuse him work, and feed him scraps they would normally feed a pig. As their fears progress into hatred, they force him into the sea.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 2
“Frankie is entranced by the girl in the red skirt, the gypsy from Romania who speaks no English. It is a terrible shock to him when his neighbours on the estate react violently against Emilia’s people, and what’s worse is that it’s his mother leading the protest.”
Fourteen-year-old Alem Kelo adjusts to life as a foster child seeking asylum in London, while his Eritrean mother and Ethiopian father work for peace between their homelands in Africa.
Recounts the story of Meltem and her Kurdish family from Eastern Turkey, who journey to the United Kingdom, and whose courage and resilience lead them to a new home and a new life.
Petar has a happy and loving family, but they are forced to evacuate and leave his father behind during a war, and only the thought of peace can bring back his love of music and inspire him to play the violin again.
This tale tells of a young refugee and his mother through his letters to an English penfriend. Niko and Penny are pen pals on opposite sides of the world, but their lives are separated by more than distance. Penny lives in a peaceful world. Niko lives in a world racked by war. This moving and thought-provoking story conveys Niko’s unwavering hope for a better life and is told in simple words and pictures.
Enchanting, wicked and often very funny, Poland’s folk tales are one of the great treasures of Central Europe. Crowned by the story of The Mermaid of Warsaw, the eight colourful tales in this collection include Skarbnik’s Second Breakfast, set deep in the Wieliczka salt mines, The Turnip-Counter from Karkonosze and The Copper Coin of Wineta, alongside stories from Poznan and the Polish lakes.
From Dacha to Winter Palace, from Easter Eggs to Kremlin, here is a photographic alphabet of everything we love best about Russia. The Russian Federation is a vast land of forests and steppes, deserts, rivers, lakes and big cities. Over centuries of splendour, revolution and change, our country has produced some of the greatest scientists, sportsmen and women, writers, dancers and composers in the world. As you turn the pages of this book, you will see many of the things which make Russia so special: its fine palaces and churches, its musical and cultural traditions, its magnificent scenery and spectacular winter landscapes – and you will also see the food, the sports, as well as ordinary Russian people going about their everyday lives.