A coming-of-age movie about family, rootlessness and uncovering who you really are: The viewer is invited into three stages of protagonist Chiron’s life. As a kid nicknamed “Little”, Chiron is picked on by his peers while he has to grow up without a father. As a teenager trying to survive school, he has to realize […]
A Shakespearean tragedy from Early Modernism / Renaissance about madness, revenge, political intrigues, love and loss. The king of Denmark is dead, and soon his widow Gertrud marries Claudius, the former king’s brother. Prince Hamlet is depressed because of his father’s death and angry at his mother for remarrying so quickly. One night his father’s […]
A humourous coming-of-age graphic novel about love, friendship, teenage troubles (alcohol, sexuality, violence…) and intercultural contact. Junior is a 14-year old Native-American teenager who grows up in the Spokane Indian Reservation in the State of Washington. Being bullied because of his special needs, he decides to visit an all-white public high school off the reservation, […]
A modern ‘from rags to riches’ tale about believing in both fate and love against all odds. In Q & A, the inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire, Swarup tells the story of Ram Muhammed Thomas, who participates in India’s game show “Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?”. When Ram answers question after question […]
A dystopian novel about global warming, environmental pollution, love and the loss of biodiversity. In the year 2025, 75-year-old Tyrone works as a caretaker at the estate of a wealthy rockstar in California which functions as the habitat for animals that are the last of their kind. Climate change has caused mass extinctions and rice […]
A coming-of-age novel about patriarchy, racism, social injustices and rape. Esperanza is a teenage girl living with her family in Chicago. In short episodes she tells the reader about her life, growing up on Mango Street in a poor Mexican-American community. Esperanza grows up, makes friends, falls in love and endures sexual assault. Through all […]
This young adult novel set in a small town in Pennsylvania explores themes such as racism, loss, inequality and homelessness. Jeffrey Magee is a young, homeless drifter and ends up in Two Mills, a town that is strictly divided into a white and a black community. Jeffrey visits both communities, experiences racial tensions and tries […]
A family saga about migration, destiny, gender relations and intersexuality. Cal was born as Calliope, the daughter of a Greek-American family in Michigan. But during puberty, the girl develops more and more male features and Cal finds out that he is intersexual and feels more male than female. He retells the story of his family. […]
A historical novel about friendship, betrayal, discrimination, guilt and redemption. Amir lives in the USA and remembers his childhood in Kabul, entwined with Afghanistan’s troubled history. How the communists took over, the Soviets invaded, how he escaped and settled in the USA together with his father who struggled to adapt to the new environment. But […]
Set in Nigeria during the late 19th century, this tragic novel problematises the battle between tradition and change, the role of colonialism, religion and patriarchy. Okonkwo is a respected member of his community, the Igbo people. When white missionaries arrive, Okonkwo’s son, like many others, converts to Christianity. Tensions rise between the natives and the […]
This anthropomorphic novel full of rabbits tells the tale of social unrest, community and hope, all kick-started by man-made environmental destruction. Fiver, a young rabbit with a sixth sense, is part of the Sandleford warren. He starts having disturbing visions of his home’s destruction and, along with his older brother Hazel, tries, to no avail, […]
This illustrated short fiction about hope, love, feeling lost and life itself discovers the remarkable and most unusual friendship of a boy, a mole, a fox and a horse. Following the quartet on their journey, the reader explores with them the power of imagination, as well as universal questions and answers. The picture book is […]
A drama movie about family, love and staying true to oneself: Ben and his wife Leslie decided to raise their six children far away from the quite possibly corrupting influences of modern day society, so they moved to the Washington wilderness and built their own camp. There they spend their days training their bodies and […]
In this dystopian series of five novels on racism, oppression and the abuse of power, a black majority (the Crosses) rules over a white minority (the Noughts) after African people colonized Europe. Set in Britain in an alternate reality, this paves the way for a love story a la Romeo and Juliet. The story invites […]
Combining humour, loss and grit, this teenage novel tells a travel adventure from the perspective of a strong and colourful female narrator. 10-year-old ‘Rat’ is a real character, tough, outgoing, soccer-loving and adventurous. When her father dies suddenly, she’s determined to go to New York with her brother ‘Bob’ in search of their long-lost uncle […]
This historical novel about racism, war, the abuse of power and the holocaust, is the kick-off to a series of five: Felix is a 9-year-old Jewish boy hiding in Nazi-occupied Poland 1942. Separated from his parents, he is waiting in an orphanage, under the impression that his parents are just trying to save their book […]
This collection of 10 short stories is full of suspense and may not be for the faint of heart – featuring a little bit of everything of the horror genre – from mystery and ghost fiction to aliens and witchcraft. The stories are easy to read, illustrated (each one by a different artist) and are […]
This verse novel explores the author’s childhood in South Carolina and New York in the 1960s and 1970s: Growing up as an African American woman both with the aftermath of Jim Crow laws and the beginning Civil Rights movement. Her poems feature topics of racism, religion, spiritualism, family, history and the power of memory, storytelling, […]