Middle East

How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale

Jouha is loading his donkeys with dates to sell at the market. How many donkeys are there? His son helps him count ten, but once the journey starts, things change. First there are ten donkeys, then there are nine! When Jouha stops to count again, the lost donkey is back. What’s going on? Silly Jouha doesn’t get it, but by the end of the story, wise readers will be counting correctly – and in Arabic.

The Shepherd’s Granddaughter

Amani longs to be a shepherd like her beloved grandfather Sido, who has tended his flock for generations, grazing sheep on their family’s homestead near Hebron. Amani loves Sido’s many stories, especially one about a secret meadow called the Firdoos. But as outside forces begin to encroach upon this hotly contested land, Amani struggles to find suitable grazing for her family’s now-starving herd. While her father and brother take a more militant stance against the intruding forces, Amani and her new American friend Jonathan accidentally stumble upon the Firdoos and begin to realize there is more to life than fighting over these disputed regions. Amani learns a difficult lesson about just what it will take to live in harmony with those who threaten her family’s way of life.

Take a closer look at The Shepherd’s Granddaughter as examined in WOW Review.

Come and Play: Children of Our World Having Fun

Come and Play features 32 photographs of children from everywhere. China, Japan, Greece, Wales, Morocco, Oman, Texas, New York, and many more. Each photo is beautiful, thought provoking, and accompanied by lines of children’s poetry that will amuse young readers, and cause adult readers to reflect and laugh as they see the images through children’s eyes. The photographs span the last fifty years; while the children who wrote about them are a diverse group between the ages of 5 and 11.

I Is Someone Else

It is 1966, and the times, they are a-changin’. Fifteen-year-old Stephen is on his way to a summer program in France when he meets two glamorous new friends of his older brother, Rob, who has been missing for 18 months. They persuade Stephen to travel to Istanbul with them, to find his brother. And what a world opens up to him: a world of beautiful girls, drug busts, fascinating cultures, fast-moving friendships, and betrayals. As he travels further into Asia, the nature of Stephen’s journey changes: The search for his brother is replaced by an inner exploration, in which he must confront his own past, and his own dark secret.

Thank You, World

Eight very different kids, from eight different continents, all go about their day and experience the same moments of happiness: greeting the sun in the morning, swinging on a swing, flying a kite, being tucked in by Mommy at bedtime.

The Cuckoo’s Child

Eleven-year-old Mia refuses to believe that her parents are not coming back after they are reported lost at sea. In 1962, Mia’s parents suddenly disappear while sailing off the coast of Greece. Mia and her two sisters are returned to the United States to the custody of her aunt they barely know. Mia wishes for a regular American life and spends a summer in her aunt’s Tennessee home, waiting for news of her parents. By summer’s end, Mia gradually understands why her mother left her and how she disrupted her aunt’s life.

Against the Storm

When Mehmet and his family leave their small Turkish village to seek a better life in Ankara, they find themselves living in poverty, but an encounter with a streetwise orphan and his own determination give Mehmet the courage to find a way out.