A Girl Named Disaster

Eleven-year old Nhamo runs away to avoid an arranged marriage. She struggles to escape drowning, starvation and certain death on her journey to find the father who abandoned her. Nhamo takes comfort in conversations with her dead mother and other ancestral spirits. Bold and resourceful, she survives the terror of the wilderness that surrounds her only to grapple with her greatest challenge - after she reaches civilization.

A Girl Named Disaster was read by Willi Coleman.
Willi is director of ALANA Studies and an Associate Professor of History at The University of Vermont. She is a founding member of the National Association of Black Women Historians.

What do you think?

Nhamo relies on conversations with the spirits to guide her through many treacherous moments. Does her faith serve her well? What examples can you think of where she may have failed were it not for the strength she gains from the spirits? Do you believe spirit guides exist? Describe a moment when you were somehow pointed in the right direction for the right reason.

Although Nhamo is lost for a long period on her journey, her incredible knowledge of nature and her keen observations of the world around her save her from danger many times. Describe a point in the story when you thought she was remarkably resourceful, how did her actions surprise you?

Online Adventures Where should you go from here?

Nancy Farmer was forty years old when she wrote her first short story. Since then, she describes herself as “absolutely possessed with the desire to write”. Read more about the author who grew up in a hotel.

For additional activity ideas based on A Girl Named Disaster, visit the Global Book Club and create a skit with a group of friends!

Visit the South African Parks website . You can look through some breathtaking photographs in the photo gallery.

Nancy Farmer fans are raving about her new book, The House of the Scorpion (Atheneum, 2002). If you like the African setting and enjoy a futuristic twist try The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (Penguin Putnam, 1995). Her other titles for young adults include: Do You Know Me (Orchard Books, 1993) and The Warm Place (Orchard Books, 1995).

Grace Greene from The Vermont Department of Libraries suggests you take a look at…

George, Jean Craighead. Julie of the Wolves. Harper & Row, 1972.
While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

Naidoo, Beverley. The Other Side of Truth. HarperCollins, 2000.
Smuggled out of Nigeria after their mother’s murder, Sade and her younger brother are abandoned in London when their uncle fails to meet them at the airport and they are fearful of their new surroundings and of what may have happened to their journalist father back in Nigeria.

O’Dell, Scott Island of the Blue Dolphins. Houghton, 1960.
Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not just surviving through her courage and self reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitude,

Whelan, Gloria Homeless Bird. HarperCollins, 2000.
When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India’s tradition or find the courage to oppose it.