Oranges in No Man's Land

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When you read a story about war written from a child’s point of view, you get none of the politics involved or the reasons why war may have broken out in the first place. All Ayesha knows is that the war has had tragic consequences for her family, left them homeless and cut them off from friends on the other side of the city. Elizabeth Laird shows how life continues in the midst of war and how children are the innocent victims caught up in it.When people lived side by side as friends, yet now they are separated, how can a child even begin to comprehend that? Ayesha spends time caring for her grandmother but when she becomes seriously ill, Ayesha realises that the responsibility rests solely on her shoulders. Other popular titles include Red Sky in the Morning (1988), Kiss the Dust (1991), Hiding Out (1993), and The Garbage King (2003), The Fastest Boy in the World (2014), Welcome to Nowhere (2017) and A House Without Walls (2019). It brings home the complete pointlessness of war in general, as you see how it affects innocent lives. As they were both reading it, my interest was piqued, and I sat down and read the whole book in one sitting.

Oranges in No Man’s Land went on to win the Hull Children’s Book Award and was shortlisted for the Canadian Surrey Schools Book of the Year Award and the North East Book Award. My Year 6 son is currently studying Oranges in No Mans Land at school and my Year 8 daughter had chosen it from the library.What you get, instead, is an honest account of what it feels like to live through something that you have no understanding of. The city is divided in half because of the civil war and a dangerous no man’s land separates the two sides, but when Ayesha’s Granny becomes ill she bravely decides to go on a journey to find a doctor on the other side of the city. In fact, the story is heartbreaking at times, yet for a child, it is a way of being able to visualise the complexities of war and how it impacts ordinary people. As an author who has travelled and lived in many different countries, Laird is often inspired by her surroundings and turns them into stories and novels. Ayesha and her younger siblings find themselves refugees in a bombed out flat in Beirut being cared for by an elderly grandmother.

I’ve put together some background notes, photographs and other materials about some of my books that you might like to share with your students. Oranges in No Man’s Land tells the story of 10 year old Ayesha who lives in Beirut, Lebanon, with her Granny and two younger brothers. The book is read and explored in primary schools across the UK and has been identified as one of the top 50 Children's Books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK by LoveReading4Kids. What separates the city is an invisible line, a no-mans-land armed with soldiers from each side of the fighting.Elizabeth Laird lived with her husband and son for a short time in Beirut when a civil war was in progress, which went on to inspire the events that form the story of Oranges in No Man’s Land. The story is set in Lebanon, during the civil war and told from the point of view of a ten-year-old girl who, although has no idea what the fighting is all about, is caught up in the middle of it all. It sparked a conversation between the three of us too, a discussion about civil war and its consequences.