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Separated from his family when they were forced to flee their home, a young East African boy named Deo lives alone in the Lukole refugee camp in Tanzania. With scarce resources at the camp, bullies have formed gangs to steal what they can, and a leader named Remy has begun targeting Deo. Then one day a coach gathers all the children to play soccer. Though Deo loves soccer and has even made his own ball out of banana leaves, he's unsure at first about joining in when he sees Remy on the field. But as Deo and the other boys get drawn into the game, everything begins to change. Their shared joy in playing provides the children --- including Remy --- with a sense of belonging. ?Ball by ball, practice by practice, children who were once afraid of each other laugh together,? the book explains, and ?no one feels so alone anymore.



About the Author

Katie Smith Milway

Award-winning author Katie Smith Milway is on a quest to bring world issues to elementary and middle school children. Her best-seller One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference is set in Ghana and introduces kids to microfinance and the power of social entrepreneurship. Now in 8 languages, it gave rise to a curriculum - One Hen Academy (www.onehen.org) - used by educators around the world to teach youth entrepreneurship and giving back. Her 2010 book, The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough, is set in the Honduran hillsides and introduces kids to the concept of food security and how each of us, at any age, can combat global hunger (www.thegoodgarden.org) . Her 2012 book, Mimi's Village and How Basic Health Care Transformed It, set in Kenya, connects kids' actions for global health to results in Africa (www.mimisvillage.org) . And her latest book, The Banana-Leaf Ball: How Play Can Change the World, shows the value of sport and play for social and emotional learning in a refugee camp in Tanzania - and on any playground where kids may feel unwelcome or excluded.Katie is also an independent consultant (www.milwaymedia.com) and senior advisor at The Bridgespan Group, where she led the firm's knowledge practice for a decade. She has served on the board of World Vision US, has coordinated community development programs in Latin America and Africa for Food for the Hungry International and was a delegate to the 1992 Earth Summit. She has written several adult books on sustainable development, including The Human Farm: A Tale of Changing Lives and Changing Lands (Kumarian Press, 1994) , which documented the work of sustainable agriculture pioneer Don Elias Sanchez (role model for The Good Garden's teacher) . Prior to Bridgespan, Katie served as editorial director and founding publisher at Bain & Company. A graduate of Stanford University, The Free University of Brussels and INSEAD, Katie spent a decade working in and around more than a dozen countries in Africa and Latin America on sustainable development projects, including village banking, food security, primary health care, water resourcing and education.



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