Review
Meet Blessing. She has lost her father, and been moved abruptly from her life in the Nigerian city of Lagos to a rural existence she'd never even witnessed before. School is an expensive privilege she hates. Her brother's health issues put his life at risk daily. Her grandparents are very poor, and her mother has a difficult time finding work. As Blessing opens her eyes to this new world around her - frightening and uncomfortable - she also learns to open her eyes to the life she had before, which was not as perfect as she imagined.
Tiny Sunbirds Far Away is equal parts plot and character - I never seemed to reach a good place to stop, so I read it in two days, staying up past my bedtime for "just one more page." What this book does best is put you inside the world of 12-year-old Blessing as that world is turned upside down - in a place where the...
Beyond the Book
Blessing becomes her grandmother's apprentice midwife in
Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, becoming part of a long and proud historical tradition in her family, and in the human family.
The word "midwife," is from Old English
midwif, meaning "with woman", which frames the idea of midwifery - to be
with a woman during the birthing process - along side her, rather than doing something
to her, or delivering her baby
for her.
Women have traditionally been midwives in virtually all human cultures, even those which frown on women being independent or having power of their own. It is only in the last few centuries, with the medicalization of childbirth, that men have given them any competition.
Here is a collection...
