The Girl Who Stole an Elephant

When Charlie’s longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie’s world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It’s become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins.  

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. But Xan is in fact a good witch who rescues the children. One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic.

Wonder is the funny, sweet and incredibly moving story of Auggie Pullman. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, this shy, bright ten-year-old has been home-schooled by his parents for his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the stares and cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, Auggie is being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. The thing is, Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face.

It's 1947, and India, newly independent of British rule, has been separated into two countries: Pakistan and India. The divide has created much tension between Hindus and Muslims, and hundreds of thousands are killed crossing borders. Half-Muslim, half-Hindu twelve-year-old Nisha doesn't know where she belongs or what her country is anymore. When Papa decides it's too dangerous to stay in what is now Pakistan, Nisha and her family become refugees and embark first by train but later on foot to reach her new home.

As soon as Binya saw the beautiful blue silk umbrella, she wanted it. She wanted it so badly that she was willing to give her lucky leopard's claw pendant in exchange. No one in the village had such a fine umbrella, and everywhere Binya went the umbrella went, too. Gradually it faded to a pale blue and was patched in several places, but there were still many who envied Binya her treasured possession. And the most envious of them all was old Ram Bharosa, the shopkeeper who decided that by some means he must own the blue umbrella.