Elizabeth-Irene Baitie – författare

Ato hasn’t visited his grandmother’s house since he was seven. He’s heard the rumors that she’s a witch, and his mother has told him he must never sit on the old couch on her porch. Now here he is, on that exact couch, with a strange-looking drink his grandmother has given him, wondering if the rumors are true. What’s more, there’s a freshly dug hole in her yard that Ato suspects may be a grave meant for him.Meanwhile at school, Ato and his friends have entered a competition to win entry to Nnoma, the island bird sanctuary that Ato’s father helped create. But something is poisoning the community garden where their project is housed, and Ato sets out to track down the culprit. In doing so, he brings his estranged mother and grandmother back together, and begins healing the wounds left on the family by his father’s death years before.And that hole in the yard? It is a grave, but not for the purpose Ato feared, and its use brings a tender, celebratory ending to this deeply felt and universal story of healing and love from one of Ghana’s most admired children’s book authors.

Ato and friends return in this moving and rousing followup to Crossing the Stream.  Ato is finally going to Nnoma, the bird paradise his latefather helped to build. But when he visits Nana to say goodbye, he overhearsher talking on the phone about something hidden on Nnoma. Bursting withcuriosity, Ato tries to find out more but Nana stays tight-lipped. Could ithave something to do with the letter his father wrote him as a baby, the onethat speaks of ‘enemy storms gathering’? Ato and his best friends Dzifa and Leslie arrive at Nnomawhere they meet Eyra, the mysterious owner of the island, and Hafsat, asad-eyed girl who has also lost her father. They learn that they will becompeting against other children to become an Asafo – an ambassador of Nnomaand a defender of the Earth – and taking on a series of missions to provethemselves. But Ato has a mission of his own – to uncover the secret ofwhat is hidden on Nnoma, and protect his father’s dream.