April 22, 2010

Touching and compassionate novel


Home Is Beyond The Mountains
by Celia Barker Lottridge

Nine-year-old Samira and her family are forced to flee their Assyrian village because of the approaching Turkish army. Only Samira and her brother Benyamin survive. 


Over the next four years, they are sent from one refugee camp or orphanage to another. Then a new orphanage director, Susan Shedd arrives. She decides to take all 300 orphans back to their own villages. But they will have to make the long journey on foot. To keep track of so many children, she divides them into "families" who will look after each other. Samira's new family helps to ease her grief, even as she longs for home.

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