Showing results by author "Deborah Ellis"

Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city during the Taliban rule. Parvana's father- a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed- works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day he is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food.

The girl does not respond to questions in any language and remains silent, even when she is threatened, harassed, and mistreated over several days. The only clue to her identity is a tattered shoulder bag containing papers that refer to people named Shauzia, Nooria, Leila, Asif, Hassan - and Parvana. As she waits for foreign military forces to determine her fate, she remembers the past four years of her life. Reunited with her mother and sisters, she has been living in a village where her mother managed to open a school for girls.

Fourteen-year-old Shauzia dreams of seeing the ocean and eventually making a new life in France, but it is hard to reconcile that dream with the terrible conditions of the Afghan refugee camp where she lives. Making things worse is the camp's leader, Mrs. Weera, whose demands on Shauzia make her need to escape all the more urgent.

The Taliban still control Afghanistan, but Kabul is in ruins. Parvana's father has just died, and her mother, sister, and brother could be anywhere in the country. Parvana knows she must find them. Despite her youth, Parvana sets out alone, masquerading as a boy. She soon meets other children who are victims of war - an infant boy in a bombed-out village, a nine-year-old girl who thinks she has magic powers over landmines, and a boy with one leg.

Settle back into that comfortable chair and enjoy a second helping of poignant, humorous, and nostalgic tales about how things used to be in the legendary South. From vindictive mules and small-town marriage rituals that include a pig, to Grandma's story of how a quilt square got her a husband and a home remedy of the hemorrhoidal variety that goes awry, More Sweet Tea delivers what readers have been thirsting for since the first in the Sweet Tea series.

Come sit on the porch a spell. Let's talk about times gone by and folks we remember, about slow summer evenings and lightning bugs in a jar. Listen to the music of a creaky swing and hand-cranked ice cream and cicadas chorusing in the sultry night air. Let's talk about how things used to be in the South - and for some of us, they way they still are. Welcome to the world of Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes, where award winning authors Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Virginia Ellis, Debra Dixon, Donna Ball and Nancy Knight come together for the first time to create this poignant, humorous collection of nostalgic tales.