Lost Girl Found

by Leah Bassoff, Laura DeLuca

Overview

In war-torn Sudan, a girl must make heart-rending choices as she fights for survival and a chance at a future.

“This short, quickly paced narrative will stay with readers for the rest of their lives.” School Library Journali, STARRED REVIEW

“Moving and necessary.” Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

For Poni, life in her small village in southern Sudan is simple and complicated at the same time. Stay in school. Beat up any boy who tries to show attention. Watch out for the dangers in the river. But then the war comes. And when soldiers arrive in her village and bombs begin to rain from the sky, there is only one thing for Poni to do. Run.

Poni runs for her life, and alongside thousands of refugees, she must then make a long, dusty trek across the east African countryside. Driven by the sheer will to survive, Poni finds her way to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where she hopes to be reunited with her family. And if she is lucky, she will one day be able to convince the authorities that she is worthy to go to the land of opportunity. But the misery in Kakuma is almost overwhelming, and sooner than Poni could have imagined, she is on the run again.

With single-minded determination, Poni survives hell and back, but she cannot escape the war’s devastating psychological effects or her survivor’s guilt. In a heartbreaking final twist, Poni finds her mother just as she is about to leave for America—forcing her to make the hardest decision of all.

Key Text Features
map
historical note
timeline
glossary
references

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6
Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554984183
Publisher:	Groundwood Books Ltd
Publication date:	01/24/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	605,341
Lexile:	770L (what's this?)
File size:	860 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Leah Bassoff is a writer and middle-school teacher and a former assistant editor at Penguin. She has written for Denver Voice and The Coloradan. She lives in Denver. Visit Leah's website: http://leahjbassoff.com/
Laura DeLuca teaches anthropology at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She has done extensive fieldwork in East Africa and has written articles on her experiences with Sudanese refugees in Anthropology News, Anthropology Matters and Journal of Refugee Studies. She lives in Denver.

Read an Excerpt

Then, without warning, I am awake. I run out of the hut with my hands over my head as if they can somehow shield me from whatever it is falling down upon me. When I look up, the first thing I notice is the moon, fat as a cow’s belly, but what I see next are the planes and the bombs that are falling out of them. So many bombs. It is as though they are coming from everywhere at once, as though the sky is raining down black eggs.

*

The UN woman is coming to save me. Any day. Any hour.
I want this to be true. My eyes are always craning, waiting to spot the UN woman wandering through the camps. I look everywhere for pale skin and yellowy hair. My legs jiggle and itch with readiness. At night I hardly sleep. I promised the UN woman I would be ready to leave. And who knows? Perhaps she will fetch me during the night.
I picture the UN woman appearing and softly motioning for me to follow her. The two of us would glide out of camp together. She would usher me into an air-conditioned car and take me to the nun. I would thank her profusely, of course, shake her hand or maybe embrace her, if this is what white people prefer.
I wait and watch for her. I do this for a whole week.
Finally, I accept the truth.
She isn’t coming.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Parent’s Choice Award for Fiction (Gold)

Colorado Book Award for Young Adult Literature

An ALA Notable Children’s Book

A USBBY Outstanding International Book



“This short, quickly paced narrative will stay with readers for the rest of their lives.” — School Library Journal, starred review



“Readers will come away with clear pictures of gender roles in Poni’s culture as well as the South Sudan conflict’s devastating physical and psychological effects. … Moving and necessary.” — Kirkus, starred review



“Poni is such a fully realized and sympathetic character that she engages readers from start to finish.” — Horn Book



“This is a profound rendering of a southern Sudanese female heroine who must first go down into darkness before she can rise. Women around the world will savor this stunning book.” — Marilyn Krysl, author of Dinner with Osama

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/01/2014
Gr 8 Up—This poignant and gripping story follows Poni, a young girl growing up in a Sudanese village. The emotional tale depicts the challenges of Poni's everyday life before the war. Against all odds, she must find a way to stay in school, deflect any young boy's attention, and fight for her life to survive malaria. But then the war comes, and everything changes. After her entire village is wiped out following an airstrike and her family is presumed dead, she must flee Sudan with a group of refugees to the safety of a refugee camp far away. Many die along the way, but Poni survives the long journey. Once she gets there, she discovers the horrors going on at the refugee camp and must escape. After she's free, a nun in Nairobi offers her shelter, the continuing education the teen has been longing for, and, ultimately, help getting to America, the land of opportunity. This book does an excellent job of evoking strong emotions from readers through its graphic depictions of life in war-torn Africa. Many are familiar with the Lost Boys of Sudan, but these authors set out to tell the stories of the Lost Girls of Sudan, and have succeeded with flying colors. This short, quickly paced narrative will stay with readers for the rest of their lives.—Candyce Pruitt-Goddard, Hartford Public Library, CT

School Library Journal

This is a profound rendering of a southern Sudanese female heroine who must first go down into darkness before she can rise. Women around the world will savor this stunning book.

From the Publisher

Poni is such a fully realized and sympathetic character that she engages readers from start to finish.

Horn Book

★ 2014-02-05
Much ink has been worthily spent calling attention to the harrowing experiences of the Lost Boys of Sudan. So what of the girls? Addressing a severe imbalance in the amount of attention paid to girls and women victimized in Sudan's long civil war, the co-authors (one of whom has worked in East Africa) offer a fictional memoir. It wrests a fictional Didinga child from her settled life amid family and close neighbors and sends her on a long, heartbreaking trek to a huge refugee camp in Kenya. Relating her tale in present tense in a distinct, spirited voice ("That is one thing about me. I don't get scared"), Poni goes on to describe her narrow escape from that camp and a forced marriage in the wake of a United Nations worker's failure to honor a promise of help. She recounts her later stay in a small women's shelter in Nairobi and, at last, the strenuous process of qualifying for a refugee program in far-off America. Though Poni learns to distance herself emotionally from the atrocities she witnesses, reminders of home force her to make agonizing choices along the way. Readers will come away with clear pictures of gender roles in Poni's culture as well as the South Sudan conflict's devastating physical and psychological effects. Two afterwords and a substantial bibliography (largely on the Lost Boys, perforce) will serve those who want to know more. Moving and necessary. (timeline, glossary, maps) (Fiction. 12-14)

Kirkus Reviews