A haunting look at the plight of refugees, this short piece of fiction will work well for children and adults alike. Rami floats in the water in a small dinghy with seven other people. All of them are fleeing their homeland in the hopes of finding shelter elsewhere. But the boat motor has broken down and they are now adrift. Rami is alone except for his violin, and he begins to weave a tale filled with music to keep their spirits up. It is a tale of a young man who rescues an orphaned colt from the snow and grows to be able to ride the stallion because he respects the horse’s freedom. As the tale is woven, it is not just a story about horseriding, but also one about power, brutality and the cost of freedom. A beautifully illustrated story of freedom, music, and seeking refuge. A small group of refugees is crowded on to a boat on the sea. They share their stories as the boat travels towards the dream of safety and freedom. One boy, Rami, has brought his violin, and his story of how the violin was invented, and of a stallion that could run like the wind, weaves through the other stories, bringing them all together into a celebration of hope and of the power of music and story.

A Story Like the Wind by Laurens van der Post | Goodreads A Story Like the Wind by Laurens van der Post | Goodreads

This tale can, and should, be consumed in one sitting, even for the busiest of children or young teens. A Story Like The Wind features 14 year old Rami who is escaping his war torn homeland with a handful of strangers in a tiny boat on a vicious sea. Rami carries nothing but his violin. To give everyone hope through the long, turbulent night when their outboard engine has died, he plays and his music tells a story. The story is of a Mongolian boy and his untameable white stallion; a metaphor for a violence riddled country and the unbreakable spirit of its people despite all odds. This tale within a tale is truly heartwarming and heartwrenching at the same time. As the title suggests, Azzi finds herself living in a new country where there is no physical threat of harm, but isolated from her past life and unable to fit in with the new place, her family find a home. The absence of colour in the illustrations, capture the trauma of what has happened to force her and her Mum and Dad to leave their home and more importantly her grandmother behind. The issues of language barriers, finding accommodation and being allowed to work are well-portrayed. It’s possible that this situation is familiar to children in classes all over the U.K. How well do other children understand what has happened to children like this, and how desperately they need friendship and understanding from them? A Story Like The Wind" should only take a half-hour to read, it took me two weeks because i kept putting it down and thinking of what the boy sang to the others to give them the promise of living further and longer. The song is about a horse, its companions, the wind and the and an evil conqueror and Weaver's art is shades of blue and white pencil against a dark blue starless sky. Published in partnership with Amnesty International, with supplementary reading guides. About This Edition ISBN: Two boys, maybe early teens, a husband, wife and two children and an old man and his small dog. All alone with the boy and his violin and the song.On the surface, the story within the story is about the origin of Rami’s violin but it’s also an allegory about obtaining freedom from an oppressive government. We don’t quite know the significance of this story within the story until the end, where it ties both narratives together beautifully. When the boy is finally persuaded to play his violin, the only thing he has been able to bring with him, he tells the story of Suke and the White Stallion. This is a story of fighting for freedom. The travellers on the boat decide to sing it, “for those they have left behind and those who don’t know they need it yet.” It symbolises their incredible endurance and ability to hope even in what seems like hopeless conditions.

A Story Like the Wind - LoveReading4Kids

On a boat drifting in the cold waters of the Mediterranean, dozens of Middle-Eastern refugees, young and old, cling to one another, waiting for the uncertainty that haunts their future to be put to rest.It was utterly impossible, therefore, young as he was, for him to think of death as the outrage which it is increasingly becoming in the view of metropolitan man, who keeps himself and his young as far as he can from witnessing death of any kind and so allows all the natural aids life has built into man for facing death to crumble by neglect and default." string(131) "A Story Like the Wind tells the story of a young boy who uses his agency to provide hope to fellow refugees through song and story." There are the wonderfully drawn-out characters, all of them seriously likeable for various traits, but mainly because they are sincere, caring and have good hearts. Gill Lewis weaves an unforgettable tale of displacement, hope, and the search for freedom" ( The Guardian)

A Story Like the Wind - AbeBooks 9780140038316: A Story Like the Wind - AbeBooks

It is the story of a group of refugees huddled in a flimsy boat in the middle of the ocean, escaping persecution and how they are swept up into a folklore story told by one of them, accompanied by his violin. I really loved how this folklore tale about a spirited white stallion and that when the story returned to the present, the reader learned more about the lives of the refugees. He believed that when a person could form a question, it was a sign from life that the person was ready for a truthful answer." The sea. Cold. Night. Nothing around, no ships, no land, no aircraft. The only noise is the water slapping the rubber raft you and your companions?/survivors? have spent all they had to be in. The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too. But it is Gill Lewis and her stunning prose that steals the show, its rhythmical feel makes the whole narrative like its own Strauss concerto.It had me in tears by the end. It captured the sense of grief and loss, but still carries a flag of hope and determination. This account of a Syrian family trying to survive civil war is powerful and moving. The complications of who is fighting and why are dealt with in the context of a young teenage boy’s experience and the impact on his family’s life. Do we all not secretly long for more love than reason, more pardon than justice, more impulse than calculation, more heart than head and altogether for an asymmetrical slant in our favour in our lives?" Francois is raised not only by his parents but by Batmuthi, the head tribesman and his father’s partner in the running of the ranch. He teaches Francois to understand the interconnected relationship between men, the animals, and the land itself. For Francois it is a happy childhood completely in sync with the natural rhythms of the land he lives in and loves. But there are forces at work at the time (early 1960’s) and the terrible conflicts that come to embody life in Africa intrudes into Francois’ life and he must learn to navigate a whole new landscape.