From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart comes this long-awaited memoir recalling Chinua Achebe's personal experiences of & reflections on the Biafran War one of Nigeria's most tragic civil wars. Chinua Achebe the author of Things Fall Apart was a writer whose moral courage & storytelling gifts have left an enduring stamp on world literature. There Was a Country was his long-awaited account of coming of age during the defining experience of his life: the Nigerian Civil War also known as the Biafran War of 1967-1970. It became infamous around the world for its impact on the Biafrans who were starved to death by the Nigerian government in one of the twentieth century's greatest humanitarian disasters. Caught up in the atrocities were Chinua Achebe & his young family. Achebe already a world-renowned novelist served his Biafran homeland as a roving cultural ambassador witnessing the war's full horror first-h&. Immediately after the war he took an academic post in the United States & for over forty years he maintained a considered silence on those terrible years addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. After years in the making There Was a Country presents his towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful experiences both as he lived it & eventually came to understand it. Marrying history & memoir with the author's poetry woven throughout There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid observation & considered research & reflection. It relates Nigeria's birth pangs in the context of Achebe's own development as a man & a writer & examines the role of the artist in times of war. Reviews: No writer is better placed than Chinua Achebe to tell the story of the Nigerian Biafran war... The book makes you pine for the likes of Achebe to govern... We have in There Was a Country an elegy from a master storyteller who has witnessed the undulating fortunes of a nation". (Noo Saro-Wiwa Guardian). " Chinua Achebe's history of Biafra is a meditation on the condition of freedom. It has the tense narrative grip of the best fiction. It is also a revelatory entry into the intimate character of the writer's brilliant mind & bold spirit. Achebe has created here a new genre of literature". (Nadine Gordimer). " Part-history part-memoir Achebe's moving account of the war is laced with anger but there is also an abiding tone of regret for what Nigeria might have been without conflict & mismanagement". (Sunday Times). About the author: Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He published novels short stories essays & children's books. His volume of poetry Christmas in Biafra was the joint winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Of his novels Arrow of God won the New Statesman-Jock Campbell Award & Anthills of the Savannah was a finalist for the 1987 Booker Prize. Things Fall Apart Achebe's masterpiece has been published in fifty different languages & has sold more than ten million copies. Achebe lectured widely receiving many honors from around the world amongst them the Nigerian National Merit Award Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement. In 2007 he won the Man Booker International Prize. He died in March 2013." ...

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war also known as the Biafran War. For more than forty years Achebe was silent on those terrible years until he produced this towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events. A marriage of history remembrance poetry & vivid first-hand observation There Was a Country is a work of wisdom & compassion from one of the great voices of our age. ...

Forty years after its first publication this much-loved Child's Play classic is as popular as ever. Ingenious die-cut holes bring this iconic nursery rhyme to life & Pam Adams' fabulous illustrations lend humour & vibrancy to the proceedings. Bouncy images innovative die cutting & favourite rhymes make Books with Holes a must for every child. Available in three formats suitable for babies toddlers pre-schoolers & the nursery or classroom. ...

Forty years after its first publication this much-loved Child's Play classic is as popular as ever. Ingenious die-cut holes bring this iconic nursery rhyme to life & Pam Adams' fabulous illustrations lend humour & vibrancy to the proceedings. Bouncy images innovative die cutting & favourite rhymes make Books with Holes a must for every child. Available in three formats suitable for babies toddlers pre-schoolers & the nursery or classroom. ...

Thirty-five years after the publication of the much-loved classic ' There was an old lady who swallowed a fly' comes ' There was an old lady who swallowed the sea' a fantastic prequel to the original title. Here the old lady swallows more & more creatures from the sea to try & catch the initial fish. ...

After falling overboard from his longboat Sigurd the Viking finds himself in modern-day Flotby
- a small English seaside town.
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Im the Cat in the Hat & were off to have fun. Well visit the planets the stars & the sun!" & so Dr. Seuss famous Cat in the Hat whisks young readers off on a fun-filled tour of the solar system. This title & others form part of a series of books that takes an off-beat look at nature & natural sciences through a fun combination of Seussian rhymes & zany illustrations. Aimed at early readers
- from four to seven year olds
- the books are designed to bridge the gap between concept books written for preschoolers & more formal non fiction titles that require fluent reading skills. By presenting the facts in a lively & rhythmic manner they provide the critical foundation upon which complex facts & ideas can eventually be built."

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He has never scored a goal lifted a trophy worn the captains armband or even played for the club
- but the man is considered a
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When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights & sounds of London's East End
- but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl & play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally
- their real mother Florrie a good-time girl hasn't even come to the station to wave them off & Ernie crippled at an early age by polio is used to depending on his older sister. When they arrive in Cliffehaven they're taken to live at the Beach View Boarding House where they're welcomed by the open-hearted Reilly family headed up by warm loving Peggy & life begins to improve. Sally gets a job in a uniforms factory to help pay her way
- & to pay for Ernie's expensive medicines
- but then Florrie arrives in Cliffehaven bringing disaster with her. & Sally is forced to work out where her true loyalties lie...



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Give me a dollar or I'll spit on you." That's Bradley Chalker for you. He is the oldest child in the class. He tells enormous lies. He picks fights with girls & the teachers say he has "serious behaviour problems." No one likes him
- except Carla the new school counsellor. She thinks Bradley is sensitive & generous & she even enjoys his far-fetched stories. Carla knows that Bradley could change if only he weren't afraid to try. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is believing in yourself."
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