You will meet Maria, ten years old, sent off as a house help into the big bad world because her family can no longer cater for her. You will meet the privileged thirteen-year-old, who loses a friend of the same age to an abortion gone wrong. You will relive the death of Chi’s husband and rage with her at the culture that tells her childless widows don’t deserve a dime of their late husband’s estate. You will meet the battered woman whose son rescues her from his father’s punches and slaps and Emem-Akpan expertly weaves a thread of courage, love and hope through these women’s stories. The endings are not always happy because reality is not always happily ever after but in These Issues, she gives us hope to carry on.
You will meet Maria, ten years old, sent off as a house help into the big bad world because her family can no longer cater for her. You will meet the privileged thirteen-year-old, who loses a friend of the same age to an abortion gone wrong. You will relive the death of Chi’s husband and rage with her at the culture that tells her childless widows don’t deserve a dime of their late husband’s estate. You will meet the battered woman whose son rescues her from his father’s punches and slaps and Emem-Akpan will introduce you to the woman whose husband will not stop philandering. Then there is the girl betrothed at twelve to be married at fourteen. The only problem is that she wants to be a nurse and not a wife. Emem-Akpan expertly weaves a thread of courage, love and hope through these women’s stories. The endings are not always happy because reality is not always happily ever after but in These Issues, she gives us hope to carry on.
Folakemi Emem-Akpan introduces you to neighbouring families on a Lagos Street. You will meet Collins, a new widower trying to make sense of his wife’s death and attempting to put even more distance between him and God. You will meet Bolu, pregnant and battling preeclampsia with a cancer-stricken daughter and a brooding, cheating husband. Then there is Bethany, a youth pastor who wants nothing more than to be a mother but who cannot. What happens when she finds that her husband has a child outside of their union? But this is not a book of sorrows. We will experience their pains and sorrows but much more than that, we will share in their joys. Emem-Akpan shows us just how God can stitch together broken lives, if only we’ll allow Him. This is a book of hope, to renew your trust and help you along your faith journey.
Meet ESTHER, the little girl who is confident about her faith in God and who cannot wait to share the good news with all her friends. Then there is little JEREMIAH, the boy who learns just how special he is to his parents and especially to God. He also learns that because your parents have a new baby does not mean that they love you any less. And there is LORETTA, the girl who learns that being a good Christian sometimes requires being brave enough to say no to the bully. And RITA, who learns that telling the truth is the right thing to do even though it is not always easy. Finally, you get to meet WILLIE who experiences the forgiveness of God and learns that God is a loving father. Here is a collection of five short stories written especially for you, the Christian child.
There are only two stories in this book, but both stories are meant to command your attention. In “Shattered,” you will meet a young girl trying to find her way in the world. She was raised by her grandmother, and is newly finding out who her real mother is. No matter how hard she tries, no one will tell her about her paternity, however. This one will remain a secret, until it is not. Until the revelation she wouldn’t have expected in a million years tears her apart. In “The way the other way lives,” you will meet another heroine, born into abject poverty, the fourth girl in a family of girls who have never had anything come easy to them. After having had a brief glimpse into how the rich live, will she ever willingly return to living a life of misery? Or will she do all it takes to never have to do without ever again?
In “Scorned and other stories,” you will experience firsthand the plight of the African woman. You will meet women who are scorned for not having babies, as expected by the society. You will experience the heartbreak of giving birth to premature babies in a village with no access to life sustaining equipment. You will feel the frustration of young brides who want to be nothing more than children. You will feel these women’s pains and griefs, and you will rejoice with them when they triumph.
Crux and other stories is a collection of heart wrenching stories, all ten stories tinged with the sadness and pain that makes us all human. Beyond the sadness and the pain, however, are messages of hope and upliftment. There is always a better tomorrow, always light at the end of the tunnel.
How would you handle loss? Or heartbreak? How about overwhelming grief? How does a mother cope with her only son’s loss? How does a young girl deal with incestuous rape? How does a man release his dead wife and unborn dead baby into the arms of God? Loss is an inescapable part of our journey as human beings, and Folakemi Emem-Akpan, in this book, takes us through several rushes of emotions in eight short stories that encapsulate what it means to be human.
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