Ocean State Libraries

When their mother catches their father with another woman, twelve-year-old Blessing and her fourteen-year-old brother, Ezikiel, are forced to leave their comfortable home in Lagos for the village of Warri in the Niger Delta to live with their mother's family. Without running water or electricity, Warri is at first a nightmare for Blessing. Her mother is gone all day and works suspiciously late into the night to pay the children's school fees. Her...

When Emma Davis reads the words of Isaiah 6:8 in her room at a Georgia women's college, she understands her true calling: to become a missionary. It is a leap of faith that sweeps her away to Africa in an odyssey of personal discovery, tremendous hardship, and profound transformation.

Describes how the culture of Nigeria is reflected in its many festivals, including the Argungu Fishing Festival and the Feast of Ogun.

"Married in Nigeria, moved to Nebraska, Ifi and Job believed they would be able to keep up the appearance to relatives and friends back home that their marriage was not based on a lie: that Job was a respected doctor in America and Ifi would become his nurse." --

Chidi has a favorite color, blue. He says it is the best color in the world. His older sister, Nneka, decides to teach him about other colors seen in their village.

"My name is Otolorin. I've been called monster. Within dark valleys of flesh I defy the given - a snake curled in upon itself, two-in-one, mythical and shunned. Yet, in that magic place between worlds, in the realm where the great mother gives milk to her offspring, I become like a goddess. An Ordinary Wonder is a powerful coming-of-age story that explores complex desires as well as challenges of family, identity, gender, and culture, and what it...