City Boy

August 1, 2009
Gr 4-7-Orphaned by "the Disease," Sam is taken by his aunt to live in her rural Malawi village, leaving behind his computer, his private school, and the comforts of city life. Slowly he comes to terms with his loss, and with his new and confusing world, one with no electricity and quite different ideas of family and sharing. Though his adjustment is difficult, Sam finally begins to accept his circumstances and finds comfort in the people who surround him. The contrast between urban and rural lives is exemplified by the issue of Sam's blue running shoes, a gift from his mother before her death, but the object of envy and ridicule where people wear flip-flops or no shoes at all. For young U.S. readers with only a hazy idea of life in this part of the world, this moving story will go a long way toward adding detail about both modern city life and the more traditional village ways."Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2009
Grades 5-8 Samuel Sangala has grown up in urban areas in Malawi. His parents wanted nothing to do with those ignorant people in the bush, and they never returned to the rural valley where their families live. But after both his father and his beloved mother die of the The Disease (AIDS), Sam has to move to his aunts small, dark hut in a country village, where there is no electricity and no computer, and he is expected to share his stuff with his cousins. Readers will recognize from the start that Sam will eventually find a way to feel at home in his new community, but that predictability doesnt detract from the story, which remains true to his viewpoint and shows, without condescension or sentimentality, the wrenching upheaval, the ravages of AIDS, and Samuels grief. Even as he longs for the technology he learned to rely on, he also recognizes that his parents lost a lot when they broke from their roots. Above all, he learns that the definition of family encompasses more than just relatives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)