We are all reeling from the news of the terrible flooding in Queensland, Australia, and now also in Brazil. Our hearts go out to all those who have been caught up in these devastating events, as news continues to emerge, both of tragedies and incredible courage.

Read Slightly Addicted to Fiction’s post “Queensland floods: how the writing & reading community is helping.” This is the link to the official appeal in Australia. I will add a link for the Brazilian disaster as soon as I find one.

A young Afghan boy shares his life and dreams for the future with us in The Roses in My Carpets by Rukhsana Khan and illustrated by Ronald Himler (Holiday House, 1998), a beautiful, thought-provoking picture book set in a refugee camp in Pakistan. He doesn’t like school but loves the afternoons he spends weaving carpets from brightly colored threads that all hold special meaning for him: although “Everything in the camp is a dirty brown, so I do not use brown anywhere on my carpets.”

One day his work is interrupted by the shocking news that his sister has been badly hurt. He runs to the hospital. His mother is already there, too distraught to think rationally. Our young narrator takes charge, sending his mother home while he waits for news at the hospital. Fortunately, this being a children’s story, the news is good – which in turn allows for a breathing space that alters the nightmare of conflict he describes at the beginning of the book: that night his dreams open up to allow a tiny space out of danger for him and his beloved family.

Reading a story that includes issues of conflict and hurt needs plenty of thinking and discussion space around it, especially at bedtime – but Rukhsana Khan has written this story so deftly that they too will be comforted by the ending. This wonderful book includes a lot of incidental detail, such as the muezzin calling people to prayer and the boy’s musings about his overseas sponsor. Particularly convincing is the way the boy and his mother can hardly eat at the end of the day, after their terrible fright; and also the reality depicted of a boy who is very mature – who has had to grow up too quickly and take adult responsibilities on his shoulders. The attention to detail also carries over into the fine ilustrations – and young readers, and perhaps adults too, may be particularly struck by the mud buildings in the refugee camp.

I have included The Roses in My Carpets in my Personal View for our current issue of PaperTigers, which focuses on Refugee Children. Rukhsana also talks about the book in her interview with us last year; and do listen to her reading it here. On her blog, she has been discussing Ramadan recently – and I particularly enjoyed this post with an Afghan fable. Yesterday Aline pointed to some books for children that focus on Ramadan – including another of Rukhsana’s…

And please, please spare a thought for all those caught up in the floods in Pakistan, including Afghan refugees like the boy and his family in The Roses in my Carpets. If you’re looking for a charity who are sending relief, take a look at Sally’s post for some links.

Since writing Friday’s post about books to accompany El Día de los Muertos celebrations, the world has heard the news about the terrible flooding in the Mexican state of Tabasco, which has left hundreds of thousands of people without their homes and at increasing risk from disease; as yet, the number of people who have lost their lives is unknown. Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and are struggling for their own survival; and we pray for the continued strength of those providing aid and comfort in the face of such devastation.

Save the Children, Operation USA and the Red Cross are some of the charities which have set up disaster funds to help victims of the flooding in Mexico.

These last couple of weeks there has been some bad flooding in parts of the UK and I was very sad to hear from author and publisher Debjani Chatterjee that her independent Sahitya Press has been badly affected, with the loss of their books stored in a community centre in Sheffield. Our thoughts go out to her and her colleagues.

In an interview with PaperTigers a few months ago, Debjani talked about how certain stories crop up in many different traditions: one of these is the Great Flood. There are many versions of Noah’s Ark, which we enjoy reading – but this week was the first time my boys had come across the story outside its biblical context and they were intrigued. We are reading Atticus the Storyteller’s 100 Greek Myths by Lucy Coats and Anthony Lewis, which we all agree is a “superb retelling of the Greek myths for younger children” and “a really lovely book for all the family to share” (Books for Keeps). Like in The Barefoot Book of Knights I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the stories are brought together by a narrator: here it’s Atticus, who is on his way (more…)