This compelling story of adventure, romance, and intrigue, set in ancient Egypt, was written by the three-time Newbery Honor and Edgar Award winning author Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom in ancient Egypt, under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. Mara is not like other slaves; she can read and write, as well as speak the language of Babylonian. So, to barter for her freedom, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies-each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt. Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters, the noble Sheftu, and she starts to believe in his plans of restoring Thutmose III to the throne. But just when Mara is ready to offer Sheftu her help and her heart, her duplicity is discovered, and a battle ensues in which both Mara's life and the fate of Egypt are at stake. "Dangerous espionage, an unusual love story, and richly drawn background make this a book to capture quick and lasting interest."-Horn Book

This compelling story of adventure, romance, and intrigue, set in ancient Egypt, was written by the three-time Newbery Honor and Edgar Award winning author Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom in ancient Egypt, under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. Mara is not like other slaves; she can read and write, as well as speak the language of Babylonian. So, to barter for her freedom, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies--each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt. Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters, the noble Sheftu, and she starts to believe in his plans of restoring Thutmose III to the throne. But just when Mara is ready to offer Sheftu her help and her heart, her duplicity is discovered, and a battle ensues in which both Mara's life and the fate of Egypt are at stake. "Dangerous espionage, an unusual love story, and richly drawn background make this a book to capture quick and lasting interest."--Horn Book "Thoroughly engrossing."--Kirkus Reviews

With the memorable characters and plot twists she brings to her best-selling fantasies, acclaimed author Eva Ibbotson has written a hair-raising novel, set in turn-of-the-last-century Brazil.Accompanied by Miss Minton, a fierce-looking, no-nonsense governess, Maia, a young orphan, sets off for the wilderness of the Amazon, expecting curtains of orchids, brightly colored macaws, and a loving family. But what she finds is an evil-tempered aunt and uncle and their spoiled daughters. It is only when she is swept up in a mystery involving a young Indian boy, a homesick child actor, and a missing inheritance that Maia lands in the middle of the Amazon adventure she's dreamed of. Readers of every generation will treasure Ibbotson's lush historical adventure that harkens back to the beloved classics of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Louisa May Alcott.

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns that small can beat big. Armed with this knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country, and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world. Peekay starts to take boxing lessons, makes new friends, collects cacti, and plays the piano. Above all, he learns to think with his head and then with his heart. Peekay discovers that nothing can defeat the determination to be true to yourself: This is the power of one.

Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza. A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband - these are the things a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see these dreams aren't too far out of reach. But the girl's dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest, where she is forced to follow her captors' radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she's been told. Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life - her future - is hers to fight for.

In 1939, hatred took root in South Africa, where the seeds of apartheid were newly sown. There a boy called Peekay was born. He spoke the wrong language-English. He was nursed by a woman of the wrong color-black. His childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment. Yet he vowed to survive-he would become welterweight champion of the world, he would dream heroic dreams. But his dreams were nothing compared to what awaited him. For he embarked on an epic journey, where he would learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the mystical power that would sustain him even when it appeared that villainy would rule the world: The Power of One.

The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom."Gut wrenching and incredible."-- Sabaa Tahir #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes"This novel is a remarkable achievement."--Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery medalist"Beautifully epic."--Ibi Zoboi, author American Street and National Book Award finalistDream Country begins in suburban Minneapolis at the moment when seventeen-year-old Kollie Flomo begins to crack under the strain of his life as a Liberian refugee. He's exhausted by being at once too black and not black enough for his African American peers and worn down by the expectations of his own Liberian family and community. When his frustration finally spills into violence and his parents send him back to Monrovia to reform school, the story shifts. Like Kollie, readers travel back to Liberia, but also back in time, to the early twentieth century and the point of view of Togar Somah, an eighteen-year-old indigenous Liberian on the run from government militias that would force him to work the plantations of the Congo people, descendants of the African American slaves who colonized Liberia almost a century earlier. When Togar's section draws to a shocking close, the novel jumps again, back to America in 1827, to the children of Yasmine Wright, who leave a Virginia plantation with their mother for Liberia, where they're promised freedom and a chance at self-determination by the American Colonization Society. The Wrights begin their section by fleeing the whip and by its close, they are then the ones who wield it. With each new section, the novel uncovers fresh hope and resonating heartbreak, all based on historical fact. In Dream Country, Shannon Gibney spins a riveting tale of the nightmarish spiral of death and exile connecting America and Africa, and of how one determined young dreamer tries to break free and gain control of her destiny.

When young Tom Ormsby cons his way onto the great explorer Henry Morton Stanley's "Relief of Emin Pasha Expedition" in 1887, he's looking for adventure. But he has no idea what lies ahead of him. From the exotic bazaars of Zanzibar to the mouth of the Congo River and beyond, Tom soon learns he's signed on for more than the rescue of the mysterious Pasha. He's on a journey through the ravishing beauty and brutality of a jungle world peopled by slavers, warring tribes, cannibals, and colonial masters - all jockeying for survival in 19th-century Africa. As Karr follows Tom's remarkable three-year trek, she raises some provocative questions about slavery, the right of one country to impose its cultural imperatives on another, and the arrogance that can prevent a man from achieving his ultimate goal. Startling, scary, and surprising, this true story takes the reader deep into the heart of the African past.

On a prehistoric shore, a young girl fights to help her tribe survive She is at home in the ocean, as comfortable in the water as she is on dry land. The child's people have made their homes by the bay for as long as anyone can remember, diving for mussels and any other food the ocean will serve to them. They have no language; they have no names. Although they know love and jealousy and pride, they are not quite human--not yet. This child of the sea will show them the way. Two million years later, Vinny is visiting her father at an archaeological site in Africa when they discover the remains of that forgotten tribe of cliff dwellers. Across the ocean of time, these two young women will find a connection, an inexplicable bond that builds slowly but arrives with all the power of a tidal wave. This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Peter Dickinson including rare images from the author's collection.

Contains Active Table of Contents (HTML) and in the end of book include a bonus link to the free audiobook.Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary.The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company. Although the river is never specifically named, readers may assume it is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.Aboard the Nellie, anchored in the River Thames near Gravesend, Charles Marlow tells his fellow sailors about the events that led to his appointment as captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. As a child, Marlow had been fascinated by "the blank spaces" on maps, particularly by the biggest, which by the time he had grown up was no longer blank but turned into "a place of darkness" (Conrad 10). Yet there remained a big river, "resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and its tail lost in the depths of the land" (Conrad 10). The image of this river on the map fascinated Marlow "as a snake would a bird" (Conrad 10). Feeling as though "instead of going to the centre of a continent I were about to set off for the centre of the earth", Marlow takes passage on a French steamer bound for the African coast and then into the interior (Conrad 18). After more than thirty days the ship anchors off the seat of government near the mouth of the big river. Marlow, with still some two hundred miles to go, takes passage on a little sea-going steamer captained by a Swede. He departs some thirty miles up the river where his company's station is. Work on the railway is going on, involving removal of rocks with explosives. Marlow enters a narrow ravine to stroll in the shade under the trees, and finds himself in "the gloomy circle of some Inferno": the place is full of diseased Africans who worked on the railroad and now await their deaths, their sickened bodies already as thin as air (Conrad 24-25). Marlow witnesses the scene "horror-struck" (Conrad 26).

This compelling story of adventure, romance, and intrigue, set in ancient Egypt, was written by the three-time Newbery Honor and Edgar Award winning author Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom in ancient Egypt, under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. Mara is not like other slaves; she can read and write, as well as speak the language of Babylonian. So, to barter for her freedom, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies--each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt. Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters, the noble Sheftu, and she starts to believe in his plans of restoring Thutmose III to the throne. But just when Mara is ready to offer Sheftu her help and her heart, her duplicity is discovered, and a battle ensues in which both Mara's life and the fate of Egypt are at stake. "Dangerous espionage, an unusual love story, and richly drawn background make this a book to capture quick and lasting interest."--Horn Book "Thoroughly engrossing."--Kirkus Reviews

Zanele is skipping school and secretly plotting against the apartheid government. The police can't know. Her mother and sister can't know.Her best friend Thabo, schoolboy turned gang member, can tell she's up to something. But he has troubles of his own--a deal gone wrong and some powerful enemies.Across the bridge, in the wealthy white suburbs, Jack plans to spend his last days in Johannesburg burning miles on his beat-up Mustang--until he meets a girl with an unforgettable face from the simmering black township--Soweto.Working in her father's shop, Meena finds a packet of banned pamphlets. They lead to a mysterious black girl with a secret, a dangerous gangster with an expensive taste in clothes, and an engaging white boy who drives a battered red car.A series of chance meetings changes everything.A chain of events is set in motion--a failed plot, a murdered teacher, and a secret movement of students that has spread across the township. And the students will rise.

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.

This compelling story of adventure, romance, and intrigue, set in ancient Egypt, was written by the three-time Newbery Honor and Edgar Award winning author Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Mara is a proud and beautiful slave girl who yearns for freedom in ancient Egypt, under the rule of Queen Hatshepsut. Mara is not like other slaves; she can read and write, as well as speak the language of Babylonian. So, to barter for her freedom, she finds herself playing the dangerous role of double spy for two arch enemies--each of whom supports a contender for the throne of Egypt. Against her will, Mara finds herself falling in love with one of her masters, the noble Sheftu, and she starts to believe in his plans of restoring Thutmose III to the throne. But just when Mara is ready to offer Sheftu her help and her heart, her duplicity is discovered, and a battle ensues in which both Mara's life and the fate of Egypt are at stake. "Dangerous espionage, an unusual love story, and richly drawn background make this a book to capture quick and lasting interest."--Horn Book "Thoroughly engrossing."--Kirkus Reviews

IRA Notable Books for a Global Society selectionHiding behind an armchair, five-year-old Emma does not witness the murder of her mother, but she hears everything. And when the assassins finally leave, the young Tutsi girl somehow manages to stumble away from the scene, motivated only by the memory of her mother's last words: "You must not die, Emma!"Eventually Emma is taken in by an old Hutu woman who risks her own life to hide the child. Emma stays with the old woman and a quiet bond forms between the two, but long after the war ends, the young girl is still haunted by nightmares.When the country establishes courts to allow victims to face their tormenters in their villages, Emma is uneasy and afraid. But through her growing friendship with a young torture victim and the gentle encouragement of an old man charged with helping child survivors, Emma finds the courage to return to the house where her mother was killed and begin the journey to healing.

Propelled through time, Grace finds herself fifty years in the future where she joins her long-lost Aunt Clara and the underground group of Kairos. Training for the upcoming battle against the Vagaries, who now rule America, she desperately tries to open the portals to the past. Separated from Dante and her friends and family, Grace must find a way to save the future of mankind.

Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza. A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband--these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren't too far out of reach.But the girl's dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors' radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she's been told.Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life--her future--is hers to fight for.

In 1939, hatred took root in South Africa, where the seeds of apartheid were newly sown. There a boy called Peekay was born. He spoke the wrong language-English. He was nursed by a woman of the wrong color-black. His childhood was marked by humiliation and abandonment. Yet he vowed to survive-he would become welterweight champion of the world, he would dream heroic dreams. But his dreams were nothing compared to what awaited him. For he embarked on an epic journey, where he would learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the mystical power that would sustain him even when it appeared that villainy would rule the world: The Power of One.

Will the truth harm them -- or save them?When Nigeria's corrupt military government kills their mother, twelve-year-old Sade and her brother Femi think their lives are over. Out of fear for their safety, their father, an outspoken journalist, decides to smuggle the children out of Nigeria and into London, where their uncle lives. But when they get to the cold and massive city, they find themselves lost and alone, with no one to trust and no idea when -- or if -- they will ever see their father again.The Other Side of Truth is a gripping adventure story about courage, family, and the power of truth.

Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza. A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband--these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren't too far out of reach.But the girl's dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors' radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she's been told.Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life--her future--is hers to fight for.

On a prehistoric shore, a young girl fights to help her tribe survive She is at home in the ocean, as comfortable in the water as she is on dry land. The child's people have made their homes by the bay for as long as anyone can remember, diving for mussels and any other food the ocean will serve to them. They have no language; they have no names. Although they know love and jealousy and pride, they are not quite human--not yet. This child of the sea will show them the way. Two million years later, Vinny is visiting her father at an archaeological site in Africa when they discover the remains of that forgotten tribe of cliff dwellers. Across the ocean of time, these two young women will find a connection, an inexplicable bond that builds slowly but arrives with all the power of a tidal wave. This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Peter Dickinson including rare images from the author's collection.

The heartbreaking story of five generations of young people from a single African-and-American family pursuing an elusive dream of freedom."Gut wrenching and incredible."-- Sabaa Tahir #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes"This novel is a remarkable achievement."--Kelly Barnhill, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery medalist"Beautifully epic."--Ibi Zoboi, author American Street and National Book Award finalistDream Country begins in suburban Minneapolis at the moment when seventeen-year-old Kollie Flomo begins to crack under the strain of his life as a Liberian refugee. He's exhausted by being at once too black and not black enough for his African American peers and worn down by the expectations of his own Liberian family and community. When his frustration finally spills into violence and his parents send him back to Monrovia to reform school, the story shifts. Like Kollie, readers travel back to Liberia, but also back in time, to the early twentieth century and the point of view of Togar Somah, an eighteen-year-old indigenous Liberian on the run from government militias that would force him to work the plantations of the Congo people, descendants of the African American slaves who colonized Liberia almost a century earlier. When Togar's section draws to a shocking close, the novel jumps again, back to America in 1827, to the children of Yasmine Wright, who leave a Virginia plantation with their mother for Liberia, where they're promised freedom and a chance at self-determination by the American Colonization Society. The Wrights begin their section by fleeing the whip and by its close, they are then the ones who wield it. With each new section, the novel uncovers fresh hope and resonating heartbreak, all based on historical fact. In Dream Country, Shannon Gibney spins a riveting tale of the nightmarish spiral of death and exile connecting America and Africa, and of how one determined young dreamer tries to break free and gain control of her destiny.

It's 1976 in South Africa.Written from the points-of-view of four young people living in Johannesburg and its black township, Soweto--Zanele, a black female student organizer, Meena, of South Asian background working at her father's shop, Jack, an Oxford-bound white student, and Thabo, a teen gang-member or tsotsi--this book explores the roots of the Soweto Uprising and the edifice of Apartheid in a South Africa about to explode.In the black township of Soweto, Zanele, who also works as a nightclub singer, is plotting against the apartheid government. The police can't know. Her mother and sister can't know. No one can know.On the affluent white side of town, Jack Craven plans to spend the last days of his break before university burning miles on his beat up Mustang, and crashing other people's parties.Their chance meeting changes everything.Already a chain of events are in motion; a failed plot, a murdered teacher, a powerful police agent with a vendetta, and a secret network of students across the township. The students will rise. And there will be violence when morning comes.Introducing readers to a remarkable young literary talent, When Morning Comes offers an impeccably researched and vivid snapshot of South African society on the eve of the uprising that changed it forever.

In 1807, at the height of the slave trade, Ajeemah and his son, Atu, are snatched by slave traders from their home in Africa while en route to deliver a dowry to Atu's bride-to-be. Ajeemah and Atu are then taken to Jamaica and sold to neighboring plantations'never to see one another again. "Readers will come away with a new sense of respect for those who maintained their dignity and humanity under the cruelest of circumstances."'SLJ. "Each moment here of the Jamaican-born poet's terse, melodious narrative is laden with emotion. . . . Brilliant, complex, powerfully written."--K. Notable Children's Book of 1993 (ALA)1993 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1993 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)1992 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)Notable 1992 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)Bulletin Blue Ribbons 1992 (C)1993 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)Children's Books of 1992 (Library of Congress)1993 Boston Globe-Horn Book Fiction Award

Emilia and Teo's lives changed in a fiery, terrifying instant when a bird strike brought down the plane their stunt pilot mothers were flying. Teo's mother died immediately, but Em's survived, determined to raise Teo according to his late mother's wishes-in a place where he won't be discriminated against because of the color of his skin. But in 1930s America, a white woman raising a black adoptive son alongside a white daughter is too often seen as a threat.Seeking a home where her children won't be held back by ethnicity or gender, Rhoda brings Em and Teo to Ethiopia, and all three fall in love with the beautiful, peaceful country. But that peace is shattered by the threat of war with Italy, and teenage Em and Teo are drawn into the conflict. Will their devotion to their country, its culture and people, and each other be their downfall?or their salvation?In the tradition of her award-winning and bestselling Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein brings us another thrilling and deeply affecting novel that explores the bonds of friendship, the resilience of young pilots, and the strength of the human spirit.