Naimah and Ajmal on Newton’s Mountain by Nancy Dafoe

In her compassionate telling of a heart-breaking (and yet sadly familiar) story — a mother cruelly separated from her child in wartime — Nancy Dafoe challenges her readers with a thought experiment about peace, a fable filled with wisdom and insight. The baby, swept away from the violent human world, grows up in a magical realm where spirit creatures teach him through story and song, encouraging him to listen beyond language. We follow the separate journeys of two people with an unbreakable bond: a mother transformed by pain, who realizes her vocation is to awaken in men the need for peace, and a son who never forgets the sound of his mother’s heartbeat.

–Janine DeBaise, author of Body Language and Of a Feather.

During a bombing raid, Naimah is hit with schrapnel and her baby Ajmal is ejected from her arms. She regains consciousness in a makeshift hospital only to learn that Ajmal is missing. His body has not been found. Dafoe’s parallel tales — Naimah’s pained search for her son and her press against overwhelming odds to become a writer in the anti-war movement and Ajmal’s playful adventures and education in Perterra, a peaceful land populated by gifted animal mentors — come together in an unexpected way. Dafoe writes movingly, and her artful, absorbing book will keep you enthralled until the very last page.

–Mary Lynch Kennedy, Distinguished Professor of English Emerita, SUNY Cortland