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Little Sanctuary takes place in a Global South falling apart and wracked by war.
Teenaged Sabel and her younger siblings are sent for safekeeping to a boarding school on a distant island. After discovering their guardians mean to do them harm, Sabel rallies the others and plots a dangerous escape.
"Perceptive depictions of class dynamics and societal collapse dominate this fever-dream read with Lord of the Flies undertones." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Boyagoda's young readers' debut explores themes of hope, belief, and resiliency...[Little Sanctuary is] a thought-provoking work for readers interested in exploring conflict and its aftereffects." ―Kirkus Reviews
This information about Little Sanctuary was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto. His novels, which include Original Prin and Dante's Indiana, have been nominated for the ScotiaBank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. He lives in Toronto with his wife and four daughters. Little Sanctuary is his first novel for young readers.
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