World Kid Lit Month 2023: A Book from Europe

A book from Europe: 

Maya and her friends. 
Written by Larysa Denysenko; illustrated by Masha Foya; translated by Burshtyna Tereshchenko. 

Studio Press, 2022.

The recent full-scale invasion of Ukraine has almost overshadowed the fact that areas of Ukraine have been under attack since 2014. 

Although war, and its effects, are inevitably referenced in this book - the focus is on diversity and inclusion. On family. And, on love. 

The book has been published with really upfront ethics - to the extent of noting the paper used. 

I would love to see more publishers head that way. 

World Kid Lit Month 2021: SYRIA

SYRIA: 

Boy, everywhere. 

By A. M. Dassu; cover illustration by Zainab Daby Faidhi. 

Forced to sell all their belongings and leave their friends and beloved grandmother behind, Sami and his family travel across the Middle East to Turkey, where they end up in a smuggler's den. From there, they cross the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean and manage to fly to England, only to be separated and detained in an immigration prison for the crime of seeking asylum. Yet the transition from refugee to immigrant in a new life will be the greatest challenge Sami has ever faced.

World Kid Lit Month 2021: SUDAN

SUDAN: 

Brothers in hope: the story of the lost boys of Sudan. 

By Mary Williams; illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. 

Eight-year-old Garang, orphaned by a civil war in Sudan, finds the inner strength to help lead other boys as they trek hundreds of miles seeking safety in Ethiopia, then Kenya, and finally in the United States. 

World Kid Lit Month 2021: SOMALIA

SOMALIA: 

Muktar and the camels. 

By Janet Graber; illustrated by Scott Mack. 

Muktar, an 11-year-old refugee living in a Kenyan orphanage, dreams of tending camels again, as he did with his nomadic family in Somalia, and has a chance to prove himself when a traveling librarian with an injured camel arrives at his school. 

World Kid Lit Month 2021: POLAND

POLAND: 

A winter's day in 1939. 

By Melinda Szymanik (NZ author). 

Adam is 12 years old and lives with his family on a small farm in rural Poland. It is 1939 and the war has just broken out. Russians invade Poland and confiscate Adam's family's house and farm. They are sent to live with another family nearby, but are then moved on and put on a train for a Russian labour camp as refugees, prisoners of Russia.

World Kid Lit Month 2021: PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN: 

Malala's magic pencil. 

By Malala Yousafzai; illustrated by Kerascoët. 

As a child in Pakistan, Malala made a wish for a magic pencil that she could use to redraw reality. She would use it to give gifts to her family, to erase the smell from the rubbish dump near her house, to sleep an extra hour in the morning. As she grew older, Malala wished for bigger and bigger things. She saw a world that needed fixing. And even if she never found a magic pencil, Malala realised that she could still work hard every day to make her wishes come true.

World Kid Lit Month 2021: JAPAN

JAPAN: 

Soul lanterns. 

Shaw Kuzki; translated from the Japanese by Emily Balistrieri. 

The haunting and poignant story of a how a young Japanese girl's understanding of the historic and tragic bombing of Hiroshima is transformed by a memorial lantern-floating ceremony. 

World Kid Lit Month 2021: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: 

Zlata's diary. 

By Zlata Filipovic; with an introduction by Janine di Giovanni; translated with notes by Christina Pribichevich-Zoric. 

Zlata began her diary just before her eleventh birthday, when there was peace in Sarajevo and her life was that of a bright, intelligent, carefree young girl. Her early entries describe her friends, her new skis, her family, her grades at school, her interest in joining the Madonna Fan Club. And then, on television, she sees the bombs falling on Dubrovnik. Though repelled by the sight, Zlata cannot conceive of the same thing happening in Sarajevo. When it does, the whole tone of her diary changes.