Three angels are sent down to bring good to the world: Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, a teenage girl who is the least experienced of the trio. But she is the most human, and when she is romantically drawn to a mortal boy, the angels fear she will not be strong enough to save anyone’ especially herself’from the Dark Forces. Is love a great enough power against evil? Here is the start of a stunning trilogy; the story continues in Hades (Fall 2011) and Heaven (Fall 2012).
The second book about Big Wolf and Little Wolf. The book begins, “High up in a tall tree was a little leaf,” and it is Little Wolf’s need to touch this leaf and the fact that it will not fall that create the drama. Big Wolf refuses Little Wolf’s request that he climb up and get the leaf several times. “Wait,” he tells him. “Eventually it will fall.” But the leaf doesn’t fall. Winter arrives and the leaf is still there, high up in the tree. Then one morning Big Wolf wakes up, stretches and says, “I’m going up.” He says it just like that, simply to see Little Wolf’s eyes sparkle. At first his climb up the big tree goes well, but the higher he goes the more slippery it gets and the more dangerous. Little Wolf waits below wondering whether such a little leaf is worth such trouble after all. To climb to the top of a frost covered tree isn’t easy, and what if something should happen to Big Wolf? A lovely story about two friends and the many ways in which friendship teaches patience, boldness and love.
Anna Hibiscus lives in Africa. Amazing Africa. But she is spending Christmas with her granny in Canada. She cant wait to see snow for the first time! And how will it feel to be so far from home?
In Sydney, Australia, and in Morocco, two boys and their families have a day of shopping. Readers are invited to compare illustrations in two wordless stories that are intended to be read one from left to right and the other from right to left.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 2
In the little village of Duk Padiet in southern Sudan, a boy named Jacob Deng thrives on the love of his mother, the companionship of his sisters, the excitement of learning how to look after his uncle’s herds of cattle. The year is 1987, and suddenly in the night soldiers from the north invade the village, looting, burning, and killing. The war has arrived, and the life of Jacob will never be the same. This novel is based on the real life experiences of a Sudanese boy who, with thousands of other boys from the region, fled for his life and spent seven years walking through deserts, grasslands and forests, crossing crocodile-infested rivers, surviving life in massive refugee camps. The so-called Lost Boys of Sudan – as they were called by an American aid organization – numbered as many as 27,000, and while many died – from starvation, attacks by wild animals, drowning, or through the brutality of the military – many survived. Jacob never returned to his village, but though he was only seven years old when he had to flee, he somehow managed to live through an almost unimaginable ordeal. Throughout the seven years covered in this story, Jacob resists the temptation to join the liberation army. Steadily Jacob finds himself more and more adhering to his mother’s advice that getting an education is crucial to escaping the cycle of violence that afflicts his country. Jacob’s struggle, then, is to persist in seeking out teachers and eventually a school where his ambition to learn about the world can be met. Through it all he learns about loyalty and love for close friends who have been thrust together with him on this extraordinary journey, and also about the guiding light provided by the memory of his mother.
See the review at WOW Review, Volume 4, Issue 2
Baba Wagué is only four years old when he is sent to the tiny Malian village of Kassaro to be raised by his paternal grandparents, according to the family tradition. He is most unhappy about this at first, but under his grandmother’s patient and wise tutelage he comes to love his close-knit village community. He learns how to catch a catfish with his bare hands, flees from an army of bees, and mistakes a hungry albino cobra snake for a pink inner tube. Finally, Grandma Sabou decides that Baba is educated enough to go to school, and he moves back to the city, where his family struggles to provide him with a formal education. But he brings his village stories with him, and in the process of sharing them with his neighborhood uncovers his immense artistic and storytelling talents.
A warm visual essay on the universal relationship between children and their grandparents features photographs from a diverse range of ethnic, cultural and socio-economic regions of the world.
Departure Time is the amazing journey of a girl in two stories. The girl in the hotel with the fox and the rat, and the girl whose father travels a lot, who suggests they write a story together, a story about talking animals. She doe sn’t wan to. She is angry with him, because he can’t make it home in time for her birthday.
A children’s retelling of the epic story from India and Southeast Asia. Rama marries beautiful Sita, but Ravana, the 10-headed, 20-armed Demon King, falls in love with her, too. He captures her and takes her in his chariot to the Demon Kingdom, Lanka. Rama has to find a way to rescue Sita, and he seeks the help of the monkey general Hanuman, and Jambuvan, the King of the Bears. Rama, his brother Lakshman, and the band of monkeys and bears battle their way to the Kingdom of the Demons. With the help of the fish, they build a bridge to cross the sea and find Sita locked in Hanuman’s tower, guarded by demonesses. After a final, terrible battle, the Demon King is defeated and Rama and Sita are reunited. The touching ritual at the heart of the Hindu festival of Diwali features the lighting of earthen lamps, called “divas,” which celebrate Rama’s and Sita’s return home.
Whenever Jem meets someone new, no matter who, as soon as she looks into their eyes, a number pops into her head. That number is a date: the date they will die. Burdened with such an awful awareness, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. But while they’re waiting to ride the Eye Ferris wheel, Jem notices that all the other tourists in line flash the same number. Today’s number. Today’s date. Terrorists are going to attack London. Jem’s world is about to explode!