SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM
AUDIO BOOK
BY UWEM AKPAN
READ BY ROBIN MILES
and DION GRAHAM

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK:

Each story in this jubilantly acclaimed collection pays testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing circumstances.

A family living in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya scurries to find gifts of any kind for the impending Christmas holiday. A Rwandan girl relates her family's struggles to maintain a facade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. A young brother and sister cope with their uncle's attempt to sell them into slavery. Aboard a bus filled with refugees-a microcosm of today's Africa-a Muslim boy summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride across Nigeria. Through the eyes of childhood friends the emotional toll of religious conflict in Ethiopia becomes viscerally clear.

Uwem Akpan's debut signals the arrival of a breathtakingly talented writer who gives a matter-of-fact reality to the most extreme circumstances in stories that are nothing short of transcendent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Uwem Akpan was born in the village of Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of East Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. "My Parents' Bedroom," a story included in this, his first collection, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2007, Akpan began a teaching assignment at a Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe.

REVIEW:

What an amazing awesome audio book! Uwem Akpan has writen a book of five short stories that have to move you or else you must not be alive. All the stories are set in different parts of Africa and they are told from a child's point of view. The topics aren't video games and dolls but rather religious conflicts, slavery, genocide, poverty and hunger. The stories are written with compassion and reflect love and sacrifice and confusion and wonder. Reading these stories makes one want to know how these children can possibly grow up and survive? The brutality in some of their lives and the horror that is every day for some is often more than I could almost comprehend.

The first story is "An Ex-Mas" where a poor family has to depend on their 12 year old daughter to bring money in for them to survive. The child prostitutes herself for the food and money as well as trying to get enough money to send her younger brother to school. "In My Parents' Bedroom" a nine year old girl is forced to watch as the horrors of contemporary Rwanda play out in her own home. "Fattening for Gabon" is about two young siblings who are being raised by an affectionate uncle as their parents lie dying of AIDS. The other stories are just as powerful and Akpan uses language to show the differences and similarities between the varied and diverse people of Africa. I found listening to the stories on an audio book was even better for me, at least, than reading it because of the dialect. This is not one to miss! This is one that all of us should read and understand as best we can that all is NOT right in the world...on any day, in any way, as long as this inhumane injustice continues.

GIVEAWAY

THANKS TO ANNA AND THE
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, I HAVE
3 COPIES OF THIS AWESOME AUDIO
BOOK TO GIVE AWAY. HERE IS WHAT
YOU NEED TO DO TO WIN A COPY!



--U.S. AND CANADIAN RESIDENTS ONLY
--NO P. O. BOXES
---INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
IN CASE YOU WIN!
--ALL COMMENTS MUST BE SEPARATE TO
COUNT AS MORE THAN ONE!

HOW TO ENTER:

+1 ENTRY: COMMENT ON WHAT YOUR FEELINGS ARE ABOUT READING, OR IN THIS CASE LISTENING, TO STORIES LIKE THESE

+1 MORE ENTRIES: IF YOU BECOME A GOOGLE FRIEND FOLLOWER TODAY, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AS I AM WORKING TO GET TO 600.

+1 MORE ENTRY: IF YOU ARE ALREADY A FOLLOWER, PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW OR WHERE YOU FOLLOW.

GIVEAWAY ENDS AT 6 PM, EST,
JANUARY 15 FOR THIS BOOK!

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ONLY THOSE PEOPLE WHO
ENTERED DURING THE BLOGIVERSARY
WEEKEND ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THE
GRAND PRIZE TO COME ON JANUARY 16...
THAT IS THEY WIN ALL 12 BOOKS

NOTE: BLOGIVERSARY WEEKEND
GRAND PRIZE ELIGIBILITY IS OVER!
BUT YOU CAN STILL WIN THIS BOOK!