Kamakwie: Finding Peace, Love and Injustice in Sierra Leone

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature finalist, 2013

The Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada’s Information Book Award finalist, 2012

2013 Ann Connor Brimer Award for Children’s Literature nominee

Sierra Leone is the poorest country in Africa. Yet it is populated by people who are hopeful, and aspire to better themselves through education, proper health care, and through putting behind them the horrors of civil war.

Kathleen Martin spent several weeks in the tiny village of Kamakwie in the interior of the West African country. Here she spoke to the people – and the children – about their lives, their aspirations, their memories of war. The experience was a revelation, which she has so wonderfully chronicled in this moving and inspiring portrait of a people willing to forgive so they can look to the future with regained hope and dignity.