The Wooden Camel

Etabo dreams of being a camel racer. One day he might even beat his older brother when they race. But with the price of water rising, Etabo’s father must sell the camels, and his siblings must find work. What will Etabo do now? From acclaimed Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu and Italian illustrator Manuela Adreani, this story of love and hope centers on the inspiring Turkana people of northwest Kenya. Told with gentleness and humor, it is a universal story about keeping one’s dreams alive.

Sandmare

Sandmare is a horse drawn in the sand on a beach by a girl named Polly and her father. Pleased with their creation, Polly laments the inevitability of the Sandmare’s being washed away by the tide. But Polly makes a wish that the Sandmare could run free – and at the same time the Sandmare wishes herself, so the wish is very strong. After Polly has left, the Sandmare is able to stand up and run free. Now she must reach the stars, or at sunrise she will turn back into sand.

Calling The Gods

Thrown hard on the bottom boards, I stared up at distorted mouths, faces so red I could feel their heat. They stank of rage and of something else; several frothed at the mouth; their howls drowned the clatter and shriek of gulls swerving and tilting above the mast. Banishment is the cruellest punishment, and Selene is being driven out unjustly by her own people. Set in a New Zealand both recognisable and strangely different, CALLING THE GODS is a novel for older readers, a story of violence, love, and courage, of leadership and betrayal, of the extraordinary human ability to adapt and survive, a tale of a young woman’s heroic persistence against impossible odds.

Featured in Volume VI, Issue 2 of WOW Review.

The Black Dot

Children wake up one morning and find a black dot on their playground. When it isn’t easily removed, each has a different way of coping with it.

There are no currently English translations of this Arabic text available.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 3, Issue 4

Yasmin’s Hammer

A young Bangladeshi girl who helps support her family by working in a brickyard finds a way to make her dream of going to school and learning to read a reality.

Click here to read the Worlds of Words review.

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.

Red Ted and the Lost Things

When a teddy bear is accidentally left on the seat of a train, he uses his ingenuity–and some new friends–to search for the little girl who lost him.

Seven Daughters and Seven Sons

In an ancient Arab nation, one woman dares to be different. Buran cannot — Buran will not-sit quietly at home and wait to be married to the man her father chooses. Determined to use her skills and earn a fortune, she instead disguises herself as a boy and travels by camel caravan to a distant city. There, she maintains her masculine disguise and establishes a successful business. The city’s crown prince comes often to her shop, and soon Buran finds herself falling in love. But if she reveals to Mahmud that she is a woman, she will lose everything she has worked for.