Time To Read

perspectives

Ruby Red by Linzi Alex Glass

Ruby can’t resist the blue -eyed Afrikaans boy who brings her the exciting rush of first love, but whose presence brings hushed whispers and disapproving glances. She might not see race but it seems everybody else does . . . Interesting, thought-provoking and informative. A good read for teens and adults who are interested in getting an overview on Apartheid from the point of view of those involved.

Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah

Life is not safe for Alem. His father is Ethiopian, his mother Eritrean. Their countries are at war, and Alem is welcome in neither place. So Alem is excited to spend a holiday in London with his father - until he wakes up to find him gone. What seems like a betrayal is in fact an act of love, but now Alem is alone in a strange country, and he must forge his own path... Benjamin Zephaniah's honest, wry and poignant story of a young refugee left in London is of even more power and pertinence today than when it was first published.

The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra

Since the ascendancy of the Taliban, the lives of Mosheen and his wife Zunaira, and Atiq and his wife Musarrat, have been gradually destroyed. Yet, the lives of these four people are

about to become intertwined, through death and imprisonment to extraordinary self-sacrifice.

The Swallows of Kabul is an astounding novel of four people struggling to hold on to their humanity in a place where pleasure is a deadly sin and death has become routine.