Against the odds - Marjolijn Hof

An extraordinary and prize-winning novel about a young girl's response to her aid-worker father's disappearance in a war zone.

Kiki's father, a doctor, is always putting himself in danger by going off to faraway war zones. No matter how much she tries to convince him not to go, Kiki can't persuade him to stay. When her father actually does go missing, and as her mother and grandmother get more and more upset, Kiki begins to feel that it's up to her to save him.

In trying to fix things, Kiki almost commits a terrible and irrevocable act. But a kind man saves her from it and brings her to an understanding of the consequences of what she almost did.

A powerful, sad, yet funny book about what to do when something you've always feared seems to be becoming all too real.

While this book deals with big moral issues in a very serious way, it is also very funny and deeply human. Everyone in it is complex, multi-faceted and lovable. It is an extraordinarily well-written, compassionate and compelling book about how to come to grips with life and the things we fear might happen without sacrificing the best of ourselves.