SitSit
A collection of nine poignant, empowering short stories by the author of The Breadwinner depicts a series of young characters whose small choices trigger big life changes, from a child laborer who longs to go to school to a visitor to Auschwitz who considers the lives of concentration camp victims.
Presents eleven stories featuring children who find the courage to take charge of their lives in large and small ways.
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.
Jafar 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 at the children's aid society. Gretchen considers the lives of concentration camp victims during a school tour of Auschwitz. Mike survives seventy-two days of solitary as a young offender. Barry squirms on a food court chair as his parents tell him that they are separating. Macie sits on a too-small time-out chair while her mother receives visitors for tea. Noosala crouches in a fetid, crowded apartment in Uzbekistan, waiting for an unscrupulous refugee smuggler to decide her fate.
These children find the courage to face their situations in ways large and small, in this eloquent collection from a master storyteller.
Nine poignant and empowering short stories from the author of The Breadwinner.
- Deborah Ellis’ first work of fiction since her Fall 2014, award-winning The Cat at the Wall.
- This collection represents the best of Deborah Ellis. Accessible, well-paced but emotionally layered, character-driven stories that forward themes of a child’s independence and empowerment. Her characters can be cranky, disobedient, angry, stubborn and heroic, and young readers around the world respond to their honesty and authenticity.
- The settings in this collection range from a Polish concentration camp to an Amish farming community to a crowded apartment in Uzbekistan, and small and large towns everywhere.
- Curriculum connections: language arts / short story, character development; social studies / power and systems within society, rights and responsibilities, fairness and justice; health and physical education / decision making, personal safety.
- Perfect for fans of Deborah Ellis, both middle grade and young adult. The stories cross grade levels and are thematically rich while being short and extremely accessible in reading level.
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