Abela: the Girl who saw Lions by Berlie Doherty – first published 2008
2 stories are told alternately. Rosa is a mixed race child who lives with her mother in Sheffield. She never met her Tanzanian father. Her mother wants to adopt a child but Rosa isn’t sure about this.
9 year old Abela lives in a poverty stricken village in rural Tanzania with her grandmother. Her mother and sisters have died of AIDS. Her uncle sends her to England with his girlfriend, pretending that she is his daughter in order to try and gain British citizenship but he gets found out and she ends up in the care of social services. There is eventually a happy ending for Abela when she gets adopted by Rosa’s mother. The novel, which is aimed at teenagers deals sensitively with the subjects of child trafficking, female circumcision and AIDS. 6/10
16th November 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment