I've donated a story I wrote called THE GIRL WITH THE MAGIC HANDS to Worldreader.
Worldreader gives kids in the developing world access to digital books. Using e‑readers loaded with thousands of local and international e-books, the non-profit organization provides children with the books they want and need.
My story is available for purchase on Amazon for $2.99. The proceeds go directly to Worldreader. They also have the book available to readers in Africa and India through a phone app they've created. So they are not only using Kindles to get the books to people, they are also using mobile phone connections.
When Worldreader came to me and asked if I'd like to donate a story, I immediately said "Yes!". When it comes to literature and education, one of the biggest issues in developing nations is getting physical books to the people who want to read them. Worldreader is using technology in precisely the way I've wanted to see in a long time.
To tell you a bit about THE GIRL WITH THE MAGIC HANDS: Set in present day Nigeria, it's a story (48 pages) about the need for and the power of art and the artist. It's one of those stories that I hope will feed and urge the creative soul in young readers and give a warm fuzzy feeling to older readers. Here is a sample from Chapter 1:
This story is about Chidera. Oh what a miserable child she was. Chidera had the saddest face you could imagine. Her face was so long with sadness that her chin might as well have dragged on the ground. Poor Chidera rarely laughed, though she had friends and did well in school. Miserable children are usually the result of miserable parents. Chidera was no acceptation.
Her parents were poor though not so poor that they could not afford food, a tiny house (which was closer to being a hut), and Chidera’s schoolbooks and uniform. But even the slightest bit of poorness can become terrible when it is mixed with sadness.
Every day, her mother would wake up and go to her garden behind the house to see how it was doing. And every day, she’d come back with a face sadder than the one she’d left with. The tomatoes were dying or the cocoa yams were not sprouting or the peppers were rotting or it had rained too much or it had rained too little or there were worms and beetles attacking everything. She would sell the vegetables she grew from it at the market. Not surprisingly, Chidera’s mother didn’t make much.
Her mother also sold tiny figurines that she carved from wood. She told people that she carved them from a special wood that she could only find deep in the forest during dry season. Chidera’s mother told potential customers that the figurines brought good luck. Her mother actually made the figurines from scraps of wood she found here and there and honestly they weren’t very good at all. Chidera didn’t think they brought good luck either. All she had to do was look at her parents to know this. Nevertheless, her mother was able to sell them regularly for a small price.
Her father was a sour man, his brow always creased and his thick lips always puckered as if he’d been eating lemons. Chidera even thought his breath smelled like limes, for the only things that came from his mouth were bitter complaints.
“What kind of bland rubbish is this?!” he’d shout at every breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Chidera’s mother would always say, in a sad voice, “It is all we can afford.”
Chidera would frown and think, “Why don’t you try to make something good tasting with what we have, daddy?” But she would stay silent. Her father had a bad temper, especially in the morning when he was preparing to go to work.
Chidera tried her best not to cross him. Even at her age, she knew her father did not really like her. Whenever he was angry with her and he thought she was outside where she could not hear him, he’d say things to her mother like, “What is she good for? Nothing. Why couldn’t she at least have been a boy?!”
She was the only child of her mother and father. And no matter how hard she tried, she would never be a boy. When she was lying in her bed in the dark, listening to the crickets and frogs outside, she would wonder, “What’s so bad about me? Maybe I’m not good at anything but I’m not a bad person.”
She wanted so dearly to make her father proud and to make her mother smile. She would drift off to sleep with tears in her eyes and the first thing she did when she awoke was wipe the dried tears away.
Just imagining what it would be like to be Chidera is depressing, no? It’s a tragedy for a mere girl to experience such deep sorrow. But things were about to change for this girl. Oh yes. When things are meant to be, they will. The world always turns and the candle always burns. And Chidera was about to learn that one can get the very things one yearns.
Purchase and read more here.