The Island at the End of Everything
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A poignant story filled with heart-warming courage as a young girl takes on a harrowing journey to be reunited with her mother.
Ami lives on Culion, an island in the Philippines for people who have leprosy. Her mother is among the infected. Ami loves her home: with its blue seas and lush forests, Culion contains all she knows and loves. But the arrival of malicious government official Mr. Zamora changes her world forever. Islanders untouched by sickness are forced to leave for a neighboring island, where the children are placed in an orphanage. Banished across the sea, Ami is desperate to return to Culion before her mother's death. She finds a strange and fragile hope in a colony of butterflies. Can they lead her home before it's too late? Heartrending yet hopeful, celebrated newcomer Kiran Hargrave's novel is a story about loss, perseverence, and faith.
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1906, 12-year-old Amihan lives with her mother on the Philippine island of Culion, which would become the largest leper colony in the world. Amihan and her mother share a tranquil life of quiet rituals, cooking fresh seafood, "catching" falling stars at night, and trying to grow a garden for butterflies. Their small community of the healthy and the afflicted (the term "Touched" is preferred to "leper") live together peacefully until Mr. Zamora, a cruel government official, arrives to segregate the population and send "clean" children to an orphanage on a separate island. Amihan is heartbroken to leave her mother, whose disease is quite advanced, but once at the orphanage, she makes two friends who help her return when she gets word that her mother is dying. Hargrave's lush, lyrical prose brings the jungle island to life and pulls readers into Amihan's wrenching journey. Facts about the "Touched" contrast with people's uninformed, fear-driven reactions, in particular those of Mr. Zamora, whose loathing of the afflicted leads to irrational and hateful behavior. A moving look at how prejudice blinds people to the humanity of others. Ages 10-up.)
