About a month ago, I get an email. Gavin tells me he is an Irishman who has written a book from the point of view of a 12 year girl old growing up in Niger, West Africa. And that he has a website, http://www.gavinwestonbooks.com/ , which has further details on his book including an extract, reviews, an interview, and more.

I looked at the website and it did look interesting. I was 12 a long time ago but I never was a girl. And I have never lived in Niger. But the Irishman writing as a 12 year old girl from Niger sounded convincing to me in the short excerpt on the website. But I wasn’t sure if he could pull it off for the whole book. I think he did it. I decided to try the book and I’m glad I did. I enjoyed the book and learned quite a bit.

Several years back I read a novel about a culture that was foreign to me. It was written by a journalist who was asked in an interview why a novel rather than the reporting of facts. The answer was that sometimes the best way to convey the truth is a novel. This novel conveys a reality in ways that facts never could .

How many Nigeriens are poor, how poor are they, do they have access to adequate medical care or nutrition???? These questions and more can be answered and they are on the UNICEF fact sheet. The answers are that many are poor, so poor that over 60% get by on less than 1 US Dollar per day. Medical care is inadequate for many. One in 5 children die before their 5th birthday. Many of those who survive are malnourished. Almost half do not have access to clean water. But you still are missing the reality associated that faces people living with these facts.

Gavin Weston, the author of Harmattan, is working with FORWARD UK on the problem of child marriages . The facts are available there. You can also look at the UNICEF fact sheet cited above and see that over a third of the girls in Niger are married before they are 15. UNICEF-USA ups the number to 1 in 2 and says the Niger has the highest rate of child and forced marriages in the world. Maybe they used a slightly difference source of data or maybe they just rounded differently but the point is that we are talking about a very large number.

Harmattan puts a face on these numbers. It is a book well worth reading. I found myself drawn into the story quickly. My guess is that good writing may have played a role. The story seems to slow down a bit toward the middle (at least it seemed that way to me.) But if it slows down for you at this or other points, it is well worth finishing.

There are several books named Harmattan or that have Harmattan in the title. That surprised me since I had not even heard the word a month ago. But my point is not that I have a limited vocabulary. I just wanted to warn you so you get the right book. Look for the author’s name when you buy or better yet buy though my website (link above) or Gavin’s. The book is now available in the Kindle version and the physical book should be out soon.