"Be strong, my Abela."

These are the last words of Abela's mother in their HIV/Aids stricken African village, where it seems that to live or to die, to be sick or to be healthy, is just a matter of chance.

It takes all Abela's strength to survive her Uncle Thomas' scheming to get to Europe, but what will be her fate as an illegal immigrant?

"I don't want a sister or brother," thinks Rosa in England, when her mother tells her that she wants to adopt a child.

Could these two girls ever become sisters? Is there room in Rosa's family for an African orphan haunted by lions? Is there room in their hearts?

Abela is a powerful and moving story based on true life from Carnegie award winning author Berlie Doherty writing at her very best.

Praise for Abela

'[Abela] encompasses many important and interesting subjects and tells its story plainly, well and movingly without patronising its readers or softening the difficult topics it deals with... [It] is most beautifully described. The landscape comes to life, with the food and the wildlife and the effect of visitors from Europe described from the point of view of a girl who is both intelligent and brave and who faces more horrors than any child should know... Abela is a character who leaps out of the pages and with whom every child who reads the book will identify. Doherty's enormously impressive achievement is to make adult subjects ... understandable for young readers without once talking down to them. She transports us to both Sheffield and Africa... It is an involving, moving and above all, relevant novel that ought to be in every school library in the land and put into the hands of as many children as possible.'
Adele Geras, The Guardian