6. No Ordinary Day - Deborah Ellis

2011, Groundwork Books, House of Anansi Press
160 pages
Written for middle grades (however a small caution:  although nothing is ever said outright, at one point Valli is almost sold to a house of prostitution, and she also sees boys disappearing with older men, never to return.  It is subtle, but present.  However, it must be a huge part of life on the streets in a city in India...or anywhere in the world.  But would I share it with my fourth graders?  Hmmmm.)
Rating:  Liked it a lot/4

Setting:  Contemporary Kolkata (Calcutta), India
OSS:  A homeless, orphan Indian girl adapts to life in the streets until she meets...and ultimately trusts....a female doctor.
1st sentence:  The best day in my life was the day I found out I was alone in the world.

Deborah Ellis is amazing.  Valli is homeless and all alone in the world.  She lives on the streets of Kolkata (Calcutta) begging, stealing (she calls it borrowing), practical joking, and finding safe places to sleep.  She is afraid of "the monsters" that she occasionally sees, people who have leprosy, little knowing that she has it, too.  Granted, it's in the beginning stages, but.....  She meets a doctor, a female doctor, in a very believable way, a doctor who recognizes this kid as the smart young lady that she is, and teaches her to trust in a way that she's never understood before.  Short, powerful book.  Valli is so believable...smart and funny and full of amazing questions about everything.

Oh....every bit of royalty from this book goes to a leprosy foundation in Canada (Ellis is a Canadian writer).

39. The Heaven Shop - Deborah Ellis

For: Middle school & YA
Fitzhenry & Whiteside (Canada) 2004
186 pages includes author's note and question/answer interview
Rating: 4

Contemporary Malawi, Africa.

Told from 13 year old Binti's point of view, we meet her, her 14 year old brother, Kwasi, and her 16 year old bossy sister, Junie. They live happily in Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi, with their father, who has a coffin-making business run from their modest home. It's called The Heaven Shop. The do well enough to be sent to private school to get a good educations, and Binti is an actress/reader in a radio program that everyone in the country hears in weekly serial form.

HIV and AIDS are everywhere, killing indiscriminately, and about a third of the way through the book, the father weakens and dies. His brothers and sisters take all the family belongings, sell the house and business, and separate the siblings, making them work like servants. Binti has been spoiled, but she becomes stronger and more sure of herself as she takes off to find the grandmother that she barely knows.

The story is one of hope, of course. There is much discussion about AIDS, its stigma, condoms, prostitution, and monthly menstrual cycles, which makes the book still a little too old for my fourth graders. But I'd love to see kids of a bit older persuasion read this - good information, and a clearcut look into the lives of people in subSaharan Africa.

Deborah Ellis wrote Breadwinner, one of my all-time favorite books, about a young girl dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. A Canadian writer with quite a few awards - well deserved awards -- Deborah Ellis is an author I am always pleased to read. This wa a good one.