News From Nowhere Radical & Community Bookshop

• home
• browse books
• book details:

When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

by Gaile Parkin - £7.99  Atlantic Books (2012)
paperback    ISBN 13: 9780857894113 | ISBN 10: 0857894110

Ten-year-old Benedict is feeling happy. His family's new home in Swaziland has the most beautiful garden in the whole entire world, teeming with insects, frogs and his favourite cinnamon-coloured birds. Here, crouched in the cool shade of the lucky-bean tree, it's easy to forget the loneliness that comes from his siblings playing without him, easy to stop himself fretting about how to fix his Mama's failing cake-baking business.
 
Not that Benedict generally allows sad or uncomfortable things to cloud his day. Usually, he simply finds a way to put things right. Like trying to learn the language of his strange new country, to make himself feel less of an outsider. Like persuading the people at Ubuntu Funerals to provide a decent burial for the beautiful hoopoe killed by their van. Or like being a friend to Nomsa, a girl brave enough to pick up a spider but too afraid to tell anyone why her teacher is making her stay late after school.
 
Of course, there are many things in Africa that cannot be put right by a boy who isn't yet big. But in Benedict's wonder-filled world, even the ugliest situation has a certain magic. Warm, funny and brimming with life, Where Hoopoes Go to Heaven paints a fresh and compelling picture of life in Swaziland that will capture your imagination and restore your faith in humanity.

(Price & availability last checked: August 2019)

Order by email

×

When Hoopoes Go to Heaven - by Gaile Parkin

Please fill in the order form, & we will reply as soon as we can to confirm your order & tell you how long it will take. Choose between collection from our bookshop or mail-order, for which we charge postage at cost, at current Royal Mail rates

Select type of order: Collect & pay in the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send me a card payment link Mail-order - I will pay another way & give details in the notes section

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (required for order as back-up contact method):

Please check carefully that you have entered your phone number correctly.

Please fill out this field.

Notes (optional - for additional message or information about your order):

Close

Enquire about this book

×

When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

by Gaile Parkin

Your name:

Please fill out this field.

Your email address

Please check carefully that you have entered your email correctly

Please fill out this field.

Your phone number (optional):

Your message:

Please fill out this field.

(optional) If you are interested in ordering this book, would your order be for collection or mail-order? Select type of order : Collect from the shop - I live in or can visit Liverpool Mail-order - send by post

Close

In booklists: World Fiction - Swaziland, World Fiction - Africa,
In categories: Fiction, World - Africa,