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    Every Leaf a Hallelujah
    Every Leaf a Hallelujah
    Every Leaf a Hallelujah
    Ebook109 pages31 minutes

    Every Leaf a Hallelujah

    By Ben Okri and Diana Ejaita

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The Guardian: Best Children's and YA Book of the Year
     
    An environmental fairytale that speaks eloquently to the most pressing issues of our times, from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Famished Road.

    Mangoshi lives with her mom and dad in a village near the forest. When her mom becomes ill, Mangoshi knows only one thing can help her—a special flower that grows deep in the forest.
     
    The little girl needs all her courage when she sets out alone to find and bring back the flower, and all her kindness to overpower the dangers she encounters on the quest.
     
    Ben Okri brings the power of his mystic vision to a timely story that weaves together wonder, adventure, and environmentalism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOther Press
    Release dateFeb 15, 2022
    ISBN9781635422719
    Author

    Ben Okri

    Sir Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'.

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    3/5

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    • 3/5
      It is unfortunate that this child's version of [The Overstory] makes you want to shred the sanctimonious shrubbery. There is no mention of some of the most absolutely amazing aspects of individual trees, but largely generalities and over simplifications. I can't see this winning over the heart of child.

    Book preview

    Every Leaf a Hallelujah - Ben Okri

    One day a little girl called Mangoshi went into the forest on an errand and got lost. As she tried to make her way back home she found herself among strange-looking trees. Something about the trees worried her at first. They seemed to be whispering. She was not sure where the sound was coming from. It sounded like a river nearby, like the murmur of insects, but no insects ever sounded like this. It came from high up among the treetops and low down among the lower branches. Then sometimes it sounded among the roots. She pressed her ear to the earth and thought she heard the roots whispering. All this puzzled her. She had to get back soon, for it was getting dark. Her parents would start to worry about her.

    She had been sent on an errand into the forest to pluck a special flower that grows on the oldest tree. The flower was meant to help heal her mother’s illness. The journey had been simple. She had found the flower, but on the way back the paths had seemed to multiply and become confusing. Mangoshi did not know which one to take because a strange mist obscured the familiar path. Then it was as if the forest itself was trying to confuse her, for every path she took led her deeper into the forest where she saw trees she had never seen before.

    They were majestic trees, tall and vast. They looked hundreds of years old. It occurred to her that there was something sad about the trees. At the same moment she felt the sadness Mangoshi began to hear the murmurs. The mist that obscured the paths settled on her, preventing her from seeing anything.

    While she wandered about in the new darkness her outstretched arms came to rest on the trunk of a tree. She stopped and sat down, too tired to go any further. She rested her back on the tree and fell into a light slumber.

    She hadn’t been asleep long when the murmurs she had been hearing became voices. There were deep old voices, and strong voices, and small lovely ones. They were all talking at the same time, surprised that they had at last found someone who could hear them.

    You are all talking at once, Mangoshi said, and I can’t understand you.

    The voices fell silent. Perhaps they had never heard a human voice address them before.

    Let the eldest among you speak first, Mangoshi said, and then I want to hear what each of you has to say.

    The trees remained silent.

    "Why don’t you speak? You were all speaking at once a moment

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