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The Price of Stones
Although The Price of Stones was released last summer, I did not want to miss posting a review. Twesigye Jackson Kaguri continues to speak around the country about the founding of the Nyaka AIDS Orphans School, as his website attests. He emphasizes the difference that one person can make, a powerful message for active, aware teens.
KAGURI, Twesigye Jackson & Susan Urbanek Linville. The Price of Stones: Building a School for My Village. 288p. Viking. 2010. Tr $25.95. ISBN 978-0670021840. LC 2010011769.
Adult/High School–The devastating plague of AIDS in Africa, a distant reality for most Americans, is made heartbreakingly personal in this title. When his brother succumbs to the epidemic in Uganda, Kaguri resolves to do something for the children in his village who, like his nephew and niece, have not only been orphaned by the disease but stigmatized by it as well. With little more than faith that his god will provide a way, the penniless Kaguri, who spent a year of post-graduate study at Columbia, patiently and relentlessly navigates the obstacles of African bureaucracy and corruption as well as tribal traditions and superstitions to build and fund the two-room Nyaka Aids Orphan School. Like Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea (Penguin 2007), The Price of Stones offers teens an insight into a different culture and provides them with an inspiring model of a single person making a significant difference in a world of daunting problems. Though Kaguri’s determination is grounded in his personal faith and shaped by lessons from gospel stories, he never proselytizes.–John Sexton, formerly of the Westchester Library System, NY
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Filed under: Nonfiction
About Angela Carstensen
Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.
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