Search results for ""author ellen banda-aaku""

Winner of the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing. In this coming-of-age novel, acclaimed author Ellen Banda-Aaku offers a profound exploration into the effects of stigma, class, and family dynamics in 1970s Zambia. Pumpkin is a nine-year-old girl pulled between two vastly different worlds – that of her father, the wealthy and power-hungry Joseph Sakavungo, and her mother, his unstable mistress. As Pumpkin attempts to come to terms with her own identity, she struggles to fashion a future for herself out of the torn patchwork of her parents' lives. Beautifully constructed, Banda-Aaku has crafted a story that is in equal parts uplifting and bittersweet.

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Jama is a clever and sensitive young Maasai girl who likes elephants better than people.She decides to escape the classroom gossip about the new boy, Leku, by going to the watering hole outside her village. There, she befriends a baby elephant that she names Mbegu.When Mbegu's mother, frightened by poachers, stampedes, Jama and Mbegu are blamed for two deaths - one elephant and one human. Now Leku, whose mysterious and imposing father is the head ranger at the conservancy, may be their only lifeline.A beautiful, heart-pounding story of a girl, an elephant, and their life-changing friendship.

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