The Bush Orphanage

Between 1922 and 1967, up to 10,000 children, many as young as six, were literally plucked off the streets in Britain—taken from orphanages or snatched from the arms of single mothers or foster parents, and sent to Australia to help boost population. These children, with only a birth certificate (often false) as identification, with wrong names and birthdays to make tracing by their families impossible, were processed in the hundreds by corrupt officials within the Department of Immigration. What did these little children experience? Cruel institutionalization, loss of family and childhood, neglect and exploitation. brutality, and sexual assaults and rape. These victims lived their lives with intense feelings of fear, loneliness and confusion, low self-esteem, not knowing who their parents and siblings were, but not even knowing who they really were.

Death strikes and claims the mother of Martin Smith when he is still in primary five, leaving him and his siblings at the mercy of a volcanic tempered and cruel father. No longer prepared to accept any beatings from his father, he runs away from home and takes up residence in a deserted house in a neighbouring village with little to live on. His fate appears sealed. Just when all hope seems lost, appears Mr Finley Banks - a Peace Corp Volunteer and teacher. Martin Smith is pleased to be treated like a son once more, only for Mr Finley Banks to come to the end of his stay in the country five years later. How will things turn out with him gone? Set in Cameroon and Italy, this is a story of opportunities and opportunism. It is the story of the trials, thrills and tribulations of a young African half orphan boy determined to make it in life.

Aneze, a young Inuit girl, is left for dead after her village is ripped apart by a wife-raid; her father and brother are killed and her mother is kidnapped. Aneze is the only survivor. She renames herself Orphan Ahwak as she struggles to survive on her own, first in the forest and then in a remote world of tundra and sea-ice. She endures cold and hunger and befriends people whose customs are completely foreign to her. Through it all she remains determined to become a hunter and to find a place in an often hostile and terrifying world.

EMILY OF NEW MOON is the first in a series of novels by L. M. MONTGOMERY (1874 – 1942) about an orphan girl growing up on Prince Edward Island, Canada and is similar in genre to the author's “ANNE OF GREEN GABLES” series. Similar to her earlier and more famous Anne of Green Gables series, the Emily novels depict life through the eyes of a young orphan girl, Emily Starr, who is raised by her relatives after her father dies of tuberculosis. Emily is described as having black hair, purply violet eyes, elfin ears, pale skin and a unique and enchanting "slow" smile. Montgomery considered Emily to be a character much closer to her own personality than was Anne, and some of the events which occur in the Emily series actually happened to Montgomery herself. SYNOPSIS: Emily Starr is sent to live at New Moon Farm on Prince Edward Island with her aunts Elizabeth and Laura Murray and her Cousin Jimmy. She makes friends with Ilse Burnley, Teddy Kent, and Perry Miller, the hired boy, whom Aunt Elizabeth looks down upon simply because he was born in 'Stovepipe Town', a poorer district. Each of the children she makes friends with has a special gift. Emily was born to be a writer, Teddy is a gifted artist, Ilse is a talented elocutionist, and Perry has the makings of a great politician. They each have a few problems with their families. Emily has a hard time getting along with Aunt Elizabeth, who does not understand her need to write. Ilse's father, Dr. Burnley, ignores Ilse most of the time because of a dreadful secret concerning Ilse's mother. Teddy's mother is jealous of her son's talents and friends, fearing that his love for them will eclipse his love for her; as a result, she hates Emily, Teddy's drawings, and even his pets. Perry is not as well off as the other three, so his Aunt Tom once tries to make Emily promise to marry Perry when they grow up, threatening that unless Emily does so, she will not pay for Perry's schooling. Look out for the other unforgettable characters like Dean "Jarback" Priest; fiery Mr Carpenter, the crusty old schoolteacher who is Emily's mentor and honest poetry critic; "simple" Cousin Jimmy; Aunt Laura, who is the kind aunt; and strict, suspicious Aunt Elizabeth. REVIEWS: Readers voted this the most loved book in the series. =============== KEYWORDS/TAGS: Emily of New Moon, farm, Prince Edward Island, Canada, Aunt, Perry, Elizabeth, Ilse, Jimmy, Anne, L M Montgomery, Teddy, mother, father, Cousin, Burnley, Starr, Laura, love, stories, fiery, boy, promise, write, Jarback, pale girl, Green, Mr slow, threaten, orphan, mysterious, famous, talon, dreadful, kind, Dean, jealous, suspicious, Gables, Murray, enchanting, poor, poems, poetry, something special, Miller, Moonchildren, Moon child, novels, need, tuberculosis, characters, fear, violet, personality, strict, gifted, result, Stovepipe town, families, crusty, diesel, mentor, cynic, unforgettable, marry, elocution, doctor, writer, Tom, talented, Carpenter politician, drawing, artist, honest, Priest, unique, critic, talent, schoolteacher, spirit, purply color, purple, elfin, elf,

Tierno Monänembo was among the African authors invited to Rwanda after the 1994 Tutsi-Hutu massacre to ?write genocide into memory.? In his novel The Oldest Orphan, that is precisely what Monänembo does, to devastating effect. Powerful testimony to an unspeakable historical reality, this story is told by an adolescent on death row in a prison in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Dispassionately, almost cynically, the teenager Faustin tells his tale, alternating between his days in jail, his adventures wandering the countryside after his parents and most of the people of his village have been massacred, and his escapades as a cheerful hoodlum in the streets of Kigali. Only slowly does the full horror of his parents? death and his own experience return to Faustin. His realization strikes the reader with shattering force, for it carries in its wake the impossible but inescapable questions presented by such a murderous episode of history and such a crippling experience for a child, a people, and a nation.

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Have you ever wondered where God is? How can this be happening? What did I do to deserve this? Have your circumstances led you to question your faith? Does God care? Does he even exist? Thoughts flooded my head from our traumatic failed adoption. “Lord, where were you this time? Is this how our seven-year-long journey to have children ends? Are we being punished? Are we cursed? This adoption seemed so right. I thought I was ready. I really thought I could help these kids. After all, I started life as an Orphan.” My core beliefs had been shaken. To make sense of what just happened, I went back and examined my own life. So many times, the odds were heavily stacked against me, life, and death situations. Yet, somehow, someway, God always showed up. From orphan to carpenter and beyond, the pages of this book are my life stories. But the book is not about me or my story. It’s about God’s. As you read these true stories of my life like parables, may they be a testament that God is present and active in your life, that he loves you and has a plan to give you hope and a future.

When India and Pakistan held nuclear tests in 1998, they restarted the clock on a competition that had begun half a century earlier. Nuclear weapons restored strategic parity, erasing the advantage of India's much larger size and conventional military superiority. Yet in the years that followed Pakistan went on to lose decisively to India. It lost any ability to stake a serious claim to Kashmir, a region it called its jugular vein. Its ability to influence events in Afghanistan diminished. While India's growing economy won it recognition as a rising world power, Pakistan became known as a failing state. Pakistan had lost to India before but the setbacks since 1998 made this defeat irreversible. Defeat is an Orphan follows the rollercoaster ride through post-nuclear India-Pakistan, from bitter conflict in the mountains to military confrontation in the plains, from the hijacking of an Indian plane to the assault on Mumbai. Nuclear weapons proved to be Pakistan's undoing. They encouraged a reckless reliance on militant proxies even as the jihadis spun out of control outside and inside Pakistan. By shielding it from retaliation, the nuclear weapons also sealed it into its own dysfunction -- so much so that the Great South Asian War, fought on-and-off since 1947, was not so much won by India as lost by Pakistan.