Journey

Flightsend

Flightsend is Charlie’s new home, whether she likes it or not. Her mother sees it as an end to all that’s gone so tragically wrong. They had been a proper family. Mum; her boyfriend, Sean; and Charlie, with a new baby sister on the way. But the baby died before she was born and everything changed. Gradually, Charlie’s mother pushed Sean away, before resigning from her job and selling the house. Charlie is certain that the move to a ramshackle cottage, miles from anywhere, can only make things worse. She couldn’t be more wrong. For Charlie’s mum there’s a new business and the fresh start that she knew she needed. And for Charlie there’s a new job, new friends, a newly discovered talent for art, and new feelings for two very different men. It’s a summer of beginnings, not ends; a summer that Charlie will never forget.

How To Make a Bird

It’s dawn, on an empty road in the countryside. Empty, except for the girl in the long, red evening gown, standing next to a bicycle, and looking back at the home she’s about to leave. Mannie’s ready to start a new life and forget the terrible things that have happened here, but there are questions that need to be answered before she can let go. Questions about her elegant but unstable mother, her brother who’s always overshadowed her, and his friend Harry Jacob, who just might be Mannie’s boyfriend. And her only clue is an unfamiliar address in Melbourne, written on a scrap of paper found in her brother’s room. As she makes her journey to the city, the mystery of this vulnerable, quirky girl is revealed piece by piece in her search for a way to become whole again. With rare sensitivity and a poetic voice that is unmistakably her own, Martine Murray tells a story about growing up and listening to your heart.

No and Me

The international award-winning story of two girls from different backgrounds, united in friendship Parisian teenager Lou has an IQ of 160, OCD tendencies, and a mother who has suffered from depression for years. But Lou is about to change her life—and that of her parents—all because of a school project about homeless teens. While doing research, Lou meets No, a teenage girl living on the streets. As their friendship grows, Lou bravely asks her parents if No can live with them, and is astonished when they agree. No’s presence forces Lou’s family to come to terms with a secret tragedy. But can this shaky, newfound family continue to live together when No’s own past comes back to haunt her? Winner of the prestigious Booksellers’ Prize in France, No and Me is a timely and thought-provoking novel about homelessness that has far-reaching appeal.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 1

Thunder Over Kandahar

A powerful novel of enduring friendship set amid the terror and chaos of present-day Afghanistan.Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burns down the school and threatens the teacher and students with death.As Tamanna faces an arranged marriage to an older man and the Taliban targets Yasmine’s western-educated family, the girls realize they must flee. Traveling through the heart of Taliban territory, the two unaccompanied young women find themselves in mortal danger. After suffering grave injuries, Tamanna from a fall and Yasmine from a suicide bombing, the girls are left without the one thing that has helped them survive — each other.Reunited years later in England, Tamanna and Yasmine discover that, despite the horrific events of the past, they are both driven to return home by memories of their families and a longing for their country.The book features stunning photographs by award-winning photojournalist Rafal Gerszak (The New York Times, BBC World News) that bring readers an immediate sense of the faces and landscape of Afghanistan.Filled with tension and drama, Thunder Over Kandahar paints a vivid portrait of the perils of contemporary Afghanistan.

Courage In The Storm

She urged the horse on with a jerk at the reins. Judy went on a few steps and stopped again. The object stretched right across her path. It was close and clear now, and Greta gasped. Her very heart seemed to stop beating. For there, like a ghost risen out of the ice, lay a ship. A ship, of all things! A big schooner with three tall masts, all crusted with snow. What was it doing here? Slowly her mind filled with awful suspicion. She tried to put it aside, but it came back. At last she faced the truth.

The little mare had been lost all this time. Instead of crossing the ice, they had been wandering down the river, towards the open sea.

My Shoes and I

As Mario and his Papa travel from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with Mama, Mario’s wonderful new shoes help to distract him from the long and difficult journey.

Red Glass

Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

The Children of China

Before coming to Canada, while he was still an art teacher in Beijing, Song Nan Zhang traveled from Inner Mongolia east, south, and north to find and paint unusual scenes of Chinese family life.Here are the children who grow up in the saddle with their nomadic parents or become as agile as the mountain goats they tend. A boy plays chess on the ground with his shepherd grandfather. A teenager tends her father’s pottery shop. At festivals a child plays hide-and-seek, behind yellow parasols, and stilt dancers wait to compete.