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Sign up todayLittle Family
A Novel
Narrator
Dion Graham
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Length
7 hours 54 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“In beautiful prose, Ishmael Beah gives us the story of five children living on their own in an unnamed postcolonial African nation. They have formed a little family with code phrases, special whistles, and other safety measures for their life of petty theft while living in an abandoned airplane. The most compelling storyline in LITTLE FAMILY is that of Khoudiemata, the young teenager who is starting to understand her strength and power. As Khoudi starts to make friends outside of her little family, she begins to see that what has seemed permanent won't last.”
— Rachel • Avid Bookshop
Bookseller recommendation
“The legacy of colonialism is ugly, and Ishmael Beah’s Little Family offers a glimpse into some aspects of that legacy. The novel is the story of a group of teens and younger children living homeless, banded together into a family through lack of any other, trying to find their way in an unnamed post-colonial African nation. We catch glimpses into the past lives of the two oldest members of this family, Elimane and Khoudiemata, but the others’ pasts remain more mysterious. In sharp contrast to this little family are the “beautiful people” – the wealthy and powerful. Khoudi, entering into womanhood, is noticed by one of these wealthy people and is taken into their circle, able to seem like one of them thanks to the money earned through Elimani’s recent “hiring” by the shady character William Handkerchief. Both these connections outside the family set in motion a series of events that will alter everything. Power, corruption, inequality, passion, longing, and love affect every aspect of this moving story.”
— Nancy • Raven Book Store
Bookseller recommendation
“Little Family by Ishmael Beah is a powerful story of paradox of the effects of war and the determined human spirit to not only survive but to forge connection and community. Beah intricately develops his characters, while also conveying the landscape of their environment. This is an important perspective on coming-of-age that shouldn't be missed. Highly recommend.”
— Tina • Leaves Bakery and Books
From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of A Long Way Gone.
A powerful novel about young people living at the margins of society, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together.
Hidden away from a harsh outside world, five young people have improvised a home in an abandoned airplane, a relic of their country’s tumultuous past. Elimane, the bookworm, is as street-smart as he is wise. Clever Khoudiemata maneuvers to keep the younger kids—athletic, pragmatic Ndevui, thoughtful Kpindi, and especially their newest member, Namsa—safe and fed. When Elimane makes himself of service to the shadowy William Handkerchief, it seems as if the little family may be able to keep the world at bay and their household intact. But when Khoudi comes under the spell of the “beautiful people”—the fortunate sons and daughters of the elite—the desire to resume an interrupted coming of age and follow her own destiny proves impossible to resist.
A profound and tender portrayal of the connections we forge to survive the fate we’re dealt, Little Family marks the further blossoming of a unique global voice.
Ishmael Beah is the Sierra Leonean and American author of the novel Radiance of Tomorrow and the memoir A Long Way Gone, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller and has been published in more than forty languages. A UNICEF Ambassador and Advocate for Children Affected by War, and a member of the Human Rights Watch Children’s Advisory Committee, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their children.
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Reviews
“A testament to Beah’s confidence as a writer and a remarkable storyteller.” —The New York Times Book Review“Deeply affecting. . . . Little Family is an empathy-expanding story without the heavy gears of polemical fiction. . . . [Beah] conveys his unsettling assessment with a more delicate balance of tenderness and dread. . . . [The] little family have such a clear-eyed sense of their place as disposable members of society. To hear their story should make our confirmed blindness a little harder to maintain.” —The Washington Post
“Arguably the most-read African writer in contemporary literature.” —Vanity Fair
“[A] vibrant outing. . . . Beah informs his characters’ blend of street savvy and naïveté with bursts of details. . . . Fans of African postcolonial fiction are in for a treat.” —Publishers Weekly
“An ingenious setup. . . . readers will be drawn to discover what befalls a group fending for itself amid conflict and crime. Beah draws on both his life and imagination to depict children leading brave, provisional lives.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Beah portrays his characters with exquisite tenderness, imbuing them with a grace that belies their wretched situation. . . . In a work less harrowing but no less effective than Radiance of Tomorrow, Beah continues to speak eloquently to the impact of colonialism on generations of African children for whom freedom is merely an illusion.” —Library Journal
“Unflinching and unadorned, Beah’s novel provides an indelible portrait of desperate survival.” —Booklist (starred review)
Praise for A Long Way Gone:
“Everyone in the world should read this book.” —The Washington Post
“A breathtaking and unselfpitying account of how a gentle spirit survives a childhood from which all innocence has suddenly been sucked out. . . truly riveting.” —Time
“Deeply moving, even uplifting. . . Beah’s story . . . demands to be read.” —People
Praise for The Radiance of Tomorrow:
“Written with the moral urgency of a parable and the searing precision of a firsthand account . . . There is an allegorical richness to Beah’s storytelling and a remarkable humanity to his characters. We see tragedy arriving not through the big wallops of war, but rather in corrosive increments.” —The New York Times Book Review Expand reviews
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