Finalist for the IODE Violet Downey Book AwardSamira is only nine years old when the Turkish army invades northwestern Persia in 1918, and she and her parents, brother and baby sister are driven from their tiny village. Taking only what they can carry, they flee into the mountains, but the journey is so difficult that only Samira and her older brother, Benyamin, survive. When Samira finally arrives in a refugee camp, it is her friendship with another orphan, Anna, that pulls her out of her sadness. And when the two girls are given a toddler named Elias to care for, they form a new kind of family.Over the years the children are shunted from one refugee camp to another, from Persia to Iraq and back again, and finally end up in an orphanage, where it seems that they will live out their childhood. Then a new orphanage director arrives -- Susan Shedd, a woman whose authority and energy Samira has never seen before.And Samiras respect turns to amazement when Miss Shedd decides that she will take the three hundred children back to their home villages to make new lives for themselves. It will be a journey of three hundred miles, through the mountains, and it will be made on foot.

 

 

This book is the winner of numerous awards

This book is aimed at children at US 4th grade-7th grade.

This book has been graded for interest at 9-12 years.

There are 224 pages in this book. This book was published in 2011 by Groundwood Books Ltd , Canada .

Celia Barker Lottridge is a storyteller and multi award-winning author of picture books and novels for children, including The Name of the Tree , Ticket to Curlew , Wings to Fly , and The Little Rooster and the Diamond Button . Formerly a children's librarian and bookseller, Celia was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and lives in Toronto, Ontario.