Living in Hope
by Mary Weeks Millard
GoodBookStall Review:
Having read the prequel I Want To Be An Airline Pilot and thoroughly enjoyed it, I read this book as soon as the postman brought it – though I was supposed to be doing something else! Living In Hope is just as good and a clever title. The children we met in the first book now live in ‘Hope Village’, a special village built by a charity for children without parents, to continue to live independent lives but with an adult nearby to help if needed. Individual houses, with the children’s basic needs and a communal tap nearby. (There really are villages like this in Rwanda; there are so many children whose parents have died in the war) Shema no longer has a long walk to fetch water for his family, and now he is being sponsored to go to school, a next step to his longing to be a pilot.
Shema’s big sister Ishimwe is now twelve and has to act as mother to her two younger brothers. The family make friends with the children next door and the story unfolds with a bully boy, a football match, gorillas, a nasty man and a happy ending. Fast moving and really interesting as it tells of life in Rwanda as it is now.
Reviewer: Mary Bartholomew (19/09/11)
Having read the prequel I Want To Be An Airline Pilot and thoroughly enjoyed it, I read this book as soon as the postman brought it – though I was supposed to be doing something else! Living In Hope is just as good and a clever title. The children we met in the first book now live in ‘Hope Village’, a special village built by a charity for children without parents, to continue to live independent lives but with an adult nearby to help if needed. Individual houses, with the children’s basic needs and a communal tap nearby. (There really are villages like this in Rwanda; there are so many children whose parents have died in the war) Shema no longer has a long walk to fetch water for his family, and now he is being sponsored to go to school, a next step to his longing to be a pilot.
Shema’s big sister Ishimwe is now twelve and has to act as mother to her two younger brothers. The family make friends with the children next door and the story unfolds with a bully boy, a football match, gorillas, a nasty man and a happy ending. Fast moving and really interesting as it tells of life in Rwanda as it is now.
Reviewer: Mary Bartholomew (19/09/11)
