Linda Sue Park
I got the title of this book off of another diversity reading list and was surprised when it came from the library. It's quite a short book and actually comes from the Junior reading section at the library.
It tells the tale of two children from southern Sudan separated by about 20 years. The first story follows Salva, a 10-year old boy, who is displaced by the civil war. Chased away from his school by soldiers and fighting, Salva wanders with other refugees, eventually ending up in Ethiopia and then in Kenya. At the age of 20, he is one of the lucky ones sent to the United States to begin a new life. Once there, he receives word that his father is alive and eventually is reunited with his parents a few of his siblings who survived the destruction of his village. Salva wants to do something for his village and settles upon the idea of digging wells to supply clean drinking water.
The other story follows Nya, a young girl in South Sudan in the early 2000s. Nya walks two hours to a pond to carry muddy drinking water back to her family (four hours round trip). Once home, and after having eaten some lunch, she repeats the trip in the afternoon.
The two stories, told in parallel connect when Salva's drill rig comes to Nya's village to dig a well for the village. And... with the children no longer needing to walk eight hours a day to bring water to their families, a school is built as well so all of the children (boys and girls) can be educated.
This was a charming story, at least Nya's part. Salve's story obviously has much more darkness in it and I wonder if his story has been told elsewhere, the unsanitized version.
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