Koala Hospital

Koala Hospital features a koala rescue center in Australia. It shows why koalas are in danger, how they come to be in the sanctuary, and the process of healing and rehabilitating koalas for return to the wild. Koala Hospital also focuses on the people who work at the rescue center and how they aid the animals.

Half A Man

From a young age, Michael was both fascinated by and afraid of his grandfather. Grandpa’s ship was torpedoed during the Second World War, leaving him with terrible burns. Every time he came to stay, Michael was warned by his mother that he must not stare, he must not make too much noise, he must not ask Grandpa any questions about his past. As he grows older, Michael stays with his grandfather during the summer holidays and learns the story behind Grandpa’s injuries, finally getting to know the real man behind the solemn figure from his childhood. Michael can see beyond the burns, and this gives him the power to begin healing scars that have divided his family for so long.

Featured in WOW Review Volume X, Issue 1.

My Father’s Arms Are a Boat

A sleepless young boy who is missing his recently deceased mother finds comfort and warmth in his father’s arms. Uniquely collaged, exquisite art that provides understanding without artificial reassurance enhances this gentle lullaby of a story.

The Little Yellow Bottle

Marwa and Ahmad live in an unnamed country that could be any one of dozens touched by war. Ahmad is the star goalie of the soccer team, and Marwa is his best friend. While they know that there is a war going on, life in their village goes on largely as normal.

Marwa is the narrator of the story and she describes how one day planes fly over their village “like a cloud of angry wasps.” The children are warned that these planes dropped bombs, but after being frightened for a few days, they forget the danger. Until a day when Marwa and Ahmad are playing and Ahmad finds a small yellow bottle. Out of curiosity, he picks it up. The bomb explodes, injuring them both. Marwa describes the aftermath as she and Ahmad recover from their injuries and slowly regain hope. Written to honor the courage of children everywhere whose lives are touched by war.

Martin De Porres

As the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a former slave, Martin de Porres was born into extreme poverty. Even so, his mother begged the church fathers to allow him into the priesthood. Instead, Martin was accepted as a servant boy. But soon, the young man was performing miracles. Rumors began to fly around the city of a strange mulatto boy with healing hands, who gave first to the people of the barrios. Martin continued to serve in the church, until he was finally received by the Dominican Order, no longer called the worthless son of a slave, but rather a saint and the rose in the desert.

Tashi and the Tibetan Flower Cure

A young Tibetan American girl helps her grandfather recover from an illness through the use of a traditional cure that focuses on spiritual as well as physical recovery and brings together a caring community.

Flyaway

If they saved the swan together, could she then save her friend?In a heartbeat, in a wingbeat, it happens. Isla’s father falls. They’re racing across the fields, following the swans flying in to winter at the lake like they do every year, when something goes wrong. And before she can even catch her breath, they’re in the back of an ambulance, she’s holding his hand.At the hospital, upset and scared, Isla meets Harry. Unlike the boys at school, he doesn’t laugh when she tells him about her love of birds. He listens. But what is he doing there?As Isla struggles with her father’s frailty and the new feelings she has for Harry, she’s determined to help the only way she knows how. Outside the hospital windows, Isla watches a lone whooper swan struggling to fly. If only she could save the lost bird, would that somehow heal her dad, and cure Harry, and make everything good again?

The Scar

When his mother dies, a little boy is angry at his loss but does everything he can to hold onto the memory of her scent, her voice, and the special things she did for him, even as he tries to help his father and grandmother cope.

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat

It wasn’t too long ago that people tried all sorts of things to help sick people feel better. They tried wild things like drinking a glass full of millipedes or putting some mustard on one’s head. Some of the cures worked, and some of them…well, let’s just say that millipedes, living or dead, are not meant to be ingested. Carlyn Beccia takes readers on a colorful and funny medical mystery tour to discover that while times may have changed, many of today’s most reliable cure-alls have their roots in some very peculiar practices, and so relevant connections can be drawn from what they did then to what we do now.

Atariba and Niguayona: A Story from the Taino People of Puerto Rico

A Taino Indian legend about a young boy and his search for the healing caimoni tree.