The story of a young Southeast Asian girl's life with her eccentric blended family in Lesotho, and her search for the truth about her absent father, is a parable for the country's own quest for freedom and maturity.Red Dust, Red Sky is set in southern Africa during the time of official apartheid. A family originally from India lives in exile in the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, a tiny country entirely surrounded by South Africa itself. The aftermath of the murder of a student activist at the hands of the South African police - betrayal, the struggle for redemption and years of life underground - is the basis for this powerful story. The language is beautiful, the plot riveting, the characters vivid, edgy and humorous, full of life and eccentric energy, sexual and otherwise. The story is told by Kokoanyana, a girl growing up in the small and closed belief system of rural Lesotho. She is obsessed with discovering the story of her lost father, but the many lies her mother tells her to avoid the potentially dangerous truth has sensitized Koko to the many lies and delusions of the adults around her. This is a world of concealed facts, obscure events, and phenomena only explicable in terms of the ancestors, Shiva, and the South African Defence Force. Kokoanyana's persistent pursuit gradually unearths pieces of the puzzle. But as the family's political history reveals itself, the soldiers advance.

In 1983, at the age of thirty, dissident artist Ma Jian finds himself divorced by his wife, separated from his daughter, betrayed by his girlfriend, facing arrest for “Spiritual Pollution,” and severely disillusioned with the confines of life in Beijing. So with little more than a change of clothes and two bars of soap, Ma takes off to immerse himself in the remotest parts of China. His journey would last three years and take him through smog-choked cities and mountain villages, from scenes of barbarity to havens of tranquility. Remarkably written and subtly moving, the result is an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both insider and outsider in his own country could have written.

The classic children’s novel of a teenage girl and her special needs brother is “quite simply, a wonderfully moving story about the power of love” (Times Educational Supplement). Twelve-year-old Anna Peacock is looking forward to the birth of her baby brother. But when Ben is born with a rare condition, it is clear that he will never be like other children. Though Anna loves him immensely, she finds herself unable to tell her friends the truth about Ben’s disability. Over the years of Ben’s tragically short life, Anna’s perspective matures and changes. When the truth does come out, it leads not to the ridicule she once expected, but to sympathy and understanding. Highly commended for the Carnegie Medal, Elizabeth Laird’s Red Sky in the Morning is a heartfelt tale of love, loss, family and friendship. “A wry first-person narrative . . . . Discussion of handicaps, death and bereavement, and religious belief are carefully integrated into the story.” —School Library Journal

Inspired by the true story of an African childhood lived on the edge of destitution, award-winning Elizabeth Laird's The Garbage King takes readers on an unforgettable emotional journey. When Mamo's mother dies, he is abandoned in the shanties of Addis Ababa. Stolen by a child-trafficker and sold to a farmer, he is cruelly treated. Escaping back to the city, he meets another, very different runaway. Dani is rich, educated - and fleeing his tyrannical father. Together they join a gang of homeless street boys who survive only by mutual bonds of trust and total dependence on each other.

An SF odyssey: myth, circumstance and a viral kiss alter the life-path of Wei Lee from mortal man to a reluctant deity - the newly anointed saviour of the Red Planet.

Two young girls from very different backgrounds discover what they hold in common in this funny Australian classic.

It's 1942: Tomi Itano, 12, is a second-generation Japanese American who lives in California with her family on their strawberry farm. Although her parents came from Japan and her grandparents still live there, Tomi considers herself an American. She doesn't speak Japanese and has never been to Japan. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, things change. No Japs Allowed signs hang in store windows and Tomi's family is ostracized. Things get much worse. Suspected as a spy, Tomi's father is taken away. The rest of the Itano family is sent to an internment camp in Colorado. Many other Japanese American families face a similar fate. Tomi becomes bitter, wondering how her country could treat her and her family like the enemy. What does she need to do to prove she is an honorable American? Sandra Dallas shines a light on a dark period of American history in this story of a young Japanese American girl caught up in the prejudices and World War II.