Two children must risk everything to escape their fate and find the impossible . . . A brave, thought-provoking adventure by award-winning author, Sita Brahmachari.
Two children must risk everything to find the impossible . . . A brave, thought-provoking adventure by award-winning author, Sita Brahmachari.
Shifa and her brother, Themba, live in Grand City with their father, Nabil. The few live in luxury, whilst the millions like them crowd together in tower blocks, surviving on meagre rations and governed by Freedom Fields - the organisation that looks after you, as long as you opt in.
The bees have long disappeared; instead children must labour on farms, pollinating crops with their small hands so that the nation can eat. But Nabil remembers Before and he knows that the soul needs to be nourished as much as the body so, despite the great danger, he teaches his children how to grow and nurture flowers on a secret piece of land hidden beneath the train tracks.
The Freedom Fields farm Shifa and Nabil are sent to is hard and cruel. Themba won't survive there and Shifa comes up with a plan to break them out. But they have no idea where they are and their only guide is a map drawn from the ramblings of an elderly man they barely know.
The journey ahead is fraught with danger and the unexpected, but Shifa is strong and knows to listen to her instincts - to let hope guide them home. The freedom of a nation depends on it . . .
Sita Brahmachari has such a loving touch with the way she delicately and compassionately picks her way through experiences, families and relationships
