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The Heaven Shop...
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 20:09:01 -0600
December 1 is World AIDS Day - a good day to bring the unique new novel The Heaven Shop to attention.
The dramatic contemporary novel The Heaven Shop by Canadian author Deborah Ellis (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) involves 13-year-old Binti, a girl in Malawi. After their parents die of AIDS, Binti and her siblings must fend for themselves. Each one makes a drastic decision under these extreme circumstances, and there are drastic consequences. Binti is taken to relatives who don't want her. She's no longer a popular school girl, a beloved daughter, a famous child radio performer. She's outraged by the catastrophes imposed on her. She's ostracized because now she's become a common AIDS orphan. Subsequently Binti finds hope in a wider community of care.
The impacts of the AIDS pandemic on children permeate a story made believable by the inclusion of specific cultural details and multiple examples of how social systems break down. The memorable images of contemporary city and rural life, comfort and poverty, selfishness and generosity humanize all the statistics about AIDS in southern Africa, but they never obscure the story of this resilient girl.
Author Deborah Ellis has spent time in Malawi with some of the millions of children in Africa orphaned by AIDS and some of the people who care for them. Royalties from the sale of The Heaven Shop are earmarked for UNICEF.
Any day is a good day to think about the novel The Heaven Shop.
Last fall while I was in South Africa for the IBBY Congress, some of us had a chance to visit a public library in a township near Cape Town. Inside the library I noticed four posters about AIDS, and out in the front lobby I saw a dispenser of free condoms. The children's librarian told me how the staff keeps cartons of condoms in the library office in order to constantly replenish that condom dispenser. The AIDS pandemic is more than a headline. Every day offers an opportunity to reflect upon what is happening to real children as a result of the international AIDS crisis. The Heaven Shop brings the reality home, in part because its believable heroine is a character to whom kids in any nation can relate.
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Wed 01 Dec 2004 08:09:01 PM CST
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 20:09:01 -0600
December 1 is World AIDS Day - a good day to bring the unique new novel The Heaven Shop to attention.
The dramatic contemporary novel The Heaven Shop by Canadian author Deborah Ellis (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) involves 13-year-old Binti, a girl in Malawi. After their parents die of AIDS, Binti and her siblings must fend for themselves. Each one makes a drastic decision under these extreme circumstances, and there are drastic consequences. Binti is taken to relatives who don't want her. She's no longer a popular school girl, a beloved daughter, a famous child radio performer. She's outraged by the catastrophes imposed on her. She's ostracized because now she's become a common AIDS orphan. Subsequently Binti finds hope in a wider community of care.
The impacts of the AIDS pandemic on children permeate a story made believable by the inclusion of specific cultural details and multiple examples of how social systems break down. The memorable images of contemporary city and rural life, comfort and poverty, selfishness and generosity humanize all the statistics about AIDS in southern Africa, but they never obscure the story of this resilient girl.
Author Deborah Ellis has spent time in Malawi with some of the millions of children in Africa orphaned by AIDS and some of the people who care for them. Royalties from the sale of The Heaven Shop are earmarked for UNICEF.
Any day is a good day to think about the novel The Heaven Shop.
Last fall while I was in South Africa for the IBBY Congress, some of us had a chance to visit a public library in a township near Cape Town. Inside the library I noticed four posters about AIDS, and out in the front lobby I saw a dispenser of free condoms. The children's librarian told me how the staff keeps cartons of condoms in the library office in order to constantly replenish that condom dispenser. The AIDS pandemic is more than a headline. Every day offers an opportunity to reflect upon what is happening to real children as a result of the international AIDS crisis. The Heaven Shop brings the reality home, in part because its believable heroine is a character to whom kids in any nation can relate.
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Wed 01 Dec 2004 08:09:01 PM CST
