Deborah Ellis
1) Step
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English
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"In this powerful collection of short stories, children around the world turn eleven and take a step into their futures. Each one is changed in ways both big and small. Annoyed at having to walk his sister's dog on his birthday, Connor heads into an undeveloped subdivision, where he comes across chilling evidence of a stranger's unhappiness. A girl sneaks away from her class camping trip to a local conservation area and experiences, for the first...
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Breadwinner trilogy volume 1
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English
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Description
Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul, Afghanistan, impose strict limitations on women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest.
4) Mud city
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Breadwinner volume 3
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English
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That was where she needed to be, in a field of purple flowers, where no one could bother her. She would sit there until the confusion left her head and the stink of the camp left her nostrils. Shauzia has a dream. She dreams of getting away from the refugee camp in Pakistan and travelling to France. There she knows she would find a better life, away from the war in her home country of Afghanistan ... But escape is not so easy. Once she leaves the...
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Breadwinner volume 4
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English
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Description
Found wandering alone in a bombed-out Afghan school, 15-year-old Parvana mystifies American military forces by remaining silent, while spending her time remembering the past four years of her life, having been reunited with her mother and sisters and living in a village where her mother has finally managed to open a school for girls.
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Breadwinner volume 2
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English
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Imagine living in a country where women and girls are not allowed to leave the house without a man. Imagine having to wear clothes that cover every part of your body, including your face, whenever you go out. This is the life of Parvana, a young girl growing up in Afghanistan under the control of an extreme religious military group. When soldiers burst into her home and drag her father off to prison, Parvana is forced to take responsibility for her...
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For two years, Ellis traveled across the United States and Canada interviewing Native children. The result is a compelling collection of interviews with children aged nine to eighteen. They come from all over the continent, from Iqaluit to Texas, Haida Gwaai to North Carolina, and their stories run the gamut; some heartbreaking; many others full of pride and hope.
8) Sit
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English
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The seated child. With a single powerful image, Deborah Ellis draws our attention to nine children and the situations they find themselves in, often through no fault of their own. In each story, a child makes a decision and takes action, be that a tiny gesture or a life-altering choice. Afar is a child laborer in a chair factory and longs to go to school. Sue sits on a swing as she and her brother wait to have a supervised visit with their father...
9) I Am a Taxi
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For twelve-year-old Diego and his family, home is a prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia. His parents farmed coca, a traditional Bolivian medicinal plant, until they got caught in the middle of the government's war on drugs and were mistakenly convicted of drug possession. Diego's parents are locked up, but he can come and go, to school, to the market to sell his mother's handknitted goods, and to work as a "taxi," running errands for other prisoners. But...
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English
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Jamar found refuge in a gang after leaving an abusive home where his mother stole from him. Fred was arrested for assault with a weapon, public intoxication and attacking his mother while on drugs. Jeremy first went to court at age fourteen ("Court gives you the feeling that you can never make up for what you did, that you're just bad forever") but now wears a Native Rights hat to remind him of his strong Métis heritage. Kate, charged with petty...
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It's 2021, and the Taliban have regained power in Afghanistan. Parvana and Shauzia, the brave protagonists of The Breadwinner, must now flee to escape new dangers from an old enemy.
In Kabul, 15-year-old Damsa runs away to avoid being forced into marriage by her family. She is found by a police officer named Shauzia, who takes her to Green Valley, a shelter and school for women and girls run by Parvana.
It has been 20 years since Parvana and Shauzia...
Author
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English
Description
For twelve-year-old Diego and his family, home is a prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia. His parents farmed coca, a traditional Bolivian medicinal plant, until they got caught in the middle of the government's war on drugs and were mistakenly convicted of drug possession. Diego's parents are locked up, but he can come and go: to school, to the market to sell his mother's hand knitted goods, and to work as a "taxi," running errands for other prisoners. But...
13) In From the Cold
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English
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This high-interest, low-vocabulary novella is intended for adult basic education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) readers. Rose and her daughter Hazel are on the run in a big city. During the day, Rose and Hazel live in a shack hidden in the bushes. At night, they look for food in garbage bins. In the summer, living in the shack was like an adventure for Hazel. But now, winter is coming and the nights are cold. Hazel is starting to miss...
14) Sacred Leaf
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English
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After he finally manages to escape from being a virtual slave in an illegal cocaine operation, Diego is taken in by the Ricardo family -- poor coca farmers who provide a safe haven while he recovers from his ordeal in the jungle. But even that brief respite comes to an end when the army moves in and destroys the family's coca crop -- and their livelihood. Diego eventually joins the cocaleros as they protest the destruction of their crops by barricading...
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English
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Since its publication in 2000, hundreds of thousands of children all over the world have read and loved The Breadwinner. By reading the story of eleven-year-old Parvana and her struggles living under the terror of the Taliban, young readers came to know the plight of children in Afghanistan. But what has happened to Afghanistan's children since the fall of the Taliban in 2001? In 2011, Deborah Ellis went to Kabul to find out. She interviewed children...
16) The Greats
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English
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Winning a national high-school geography competition should be the high point of Jomon's life. So why does he find himself running through the streets of Georgetown, Guyana, later that same night - so angry and desperate? Why does he heave his hard-won medal through the front window of a liquor store?
Why does a teenaged boy decide life is not worth living?
Arrested by police and detained in a jail cell, Jomon is jolted out of his suicidal thoughts...
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The Breadwinner
The first book in Deborah Ellis's riveting Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
Parvana's Journey
In 2001, a war is raging in Afghanistan as a coalition of Western forces tries to oust the Taliban by bombing the country. Parvana's father has died, and her mother, sister and brother...
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USBBY Outstanding International Books Honor ListIn this book, Deborah Ellis turns her attention to the most tragic victims of the Iraq war -- Iraqi children. She interviews young people, mostly refugees living in Jordan, but also a few who are trying to build new lives in North America. Some families have left Iraq with money; others are penniless and ill or disabled. Most of the children have parents who are working illegally or not at all, and the...
19) The Outsmarters
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English
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Kate opens a Philosophy Booth ("Get answers to life's big and little questions-$2 a question") and ends up asking some tough questions of her own.
Suspended from school and prone to rages, twelve-year-old Kate finds her own way to get on with her life, despite the messed-up adults around her. Her gran, for one, is stubborn and aloof-not unlike Kate herself, who has no friends, and who's been expelled for "behavioral issues," like the meltdowns she...
20) The Clear-Out
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English
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This high-interest, low-vocabulary novella is intended for adult basic education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) readers. Duncan is very angry. Tess, his wife, has turned their dining room into a library. Then disaster strikes: Tess gets sick, and soon Duncan is alone. Right away, he clears out the books he hates. Suddenly, things in the house start to move around by themselves. A strange message appears in the kitchen. Is the house haunted?...