The White Robin

This short story will be a good discussion starter for elementary grades. A story of racism and intolerance among children, who through drought, fire, and suffering realize that bravery and courage is not dictated by the color of a child’s skin.

 

Mara and Dann: An Adventure

Tenderly perceptive, Lessing's first far-future novel since her celebrated Canopus in Argos: Archives series of the late 1970s-mid '80s features two appealing orphans precariously reaching adulthood on Earth thousands of years from now. The Ice Age brought on by the ecological rapaciousness of today's society is receding, bringing lethal drought to the Southern land of "Ifric," where a power struggle in her family has stranded seven-year-old Mara, who is fiercely caring for her even younger brother, Dann, in a remote village of neo-Neanderthals.