Two old white ladies (in their twenties!) arrive in the Peruvian jungle all the way from New York. They are anthropologists who have come to study the Isabo people, their work, their language, their customs. It's a good thing too - these old white ladies don't know anything! Alicia, a young Isabo girl, is the lively storyteller in this funny and touching look at cultures colliding.

1807: Ajeemah and his son, Atu, are on their way to see Atu's prospective bride when they are kidnapped, taken to Jamaica and enslaved on separate plantations. They will never meet again. Their parallel stories of slavery are powerful, painful and intensely personal.

Ran is a young Viking woman being chased by death. She is threatened by wolves, accused of witchcraft, slated for sacrifice, and hunted by a bloodthirsty man determined on revenge. But Ran is able to cheat death and win a fragile happiness in an uncertain and dangerous world. By the author of Fire, Bed and Bone.

Isabel Pacay is caught between two worlds. Her family expects her to follow Mayan traditions: to marry and devote herself wholly to her family. Isabel has other dreams, dreams of independence, a career in teaching, and a life that reaches beyond the grinding poverty and desperation of her parents' existence. Change is not a welcome visitor in Isabel's village. Will Isabel's people support her, or crush her?

Eveningstar Macaw has always accepted that human sacrifice is part of the Mayan way of life. But when the king of her city dies and the high priest Great Skull Zero begins sacrificing the best candidates for leadership, she starts to suspect his motives. Eveningstar is determined to fight him and save her people.

Nhamo is unhappy, restless, angry. She is not yet twelve. Unwilling to be married off to a cruel man who has three wives already, she sets off on a daring quest to find her father's family in Zimbabwe. It is right next to Mozambique on the map, but still a very long way for one young girl on her own. Nhamo battles loneliness, starvation, and the harsh realities of the African wilderness. Her story is one of courage, strength and hope.

Catriona ("Cat") McPhie is a traveller, one of a dying people. Others call them gypsies and treat them with scorn, suspicion, or even hatred, but Cat is proud of who and what she is. Still, the limited role allowed to traveller women chafes on Cat. When her father offers to teach her as if she were a man Cat's future seems assured. But this peace is a fragile one and the outside world cannot be ignored forever. By the author of A Sound of Chariots.

"You are a strong person. You will no doubt get over this and be a brilliant woman. Don't let me stop or delay you. I love you." So reads the suicide note. Yuki is only twelve when her mother kills herself. Life with her cold father and harsh stepmother is far from easy but Yuki is a survivor, just as her mother said. Somehow she will find the courage to carry on alone.

It is 1911. Things are changing in China. When five-year-old Ailin refuses to have her feet bound, her family relents. Although this means that her arranged marriage will not go ahead, Ailin is unconcerned. But there are consequences to her choice. As an unmarried woman, Ailin becomes a burden her family will no longer support. How can Ailin survive on her own?

Morengaru is a lost soul. He is half Masai warrior, half Kikuyu herdsman. He does not belong anywhere. Morengaru finds himself without people and has almost given in to despair when he finds a new community: a troop of baboons. Strong, cruel, tender, thoughtful and surprisingly human, the baboons offer Morengaru new hope, but to be a part of their community he must be the king!

Jimmy's family have owned the Oonaderra cattle station on Australia's Cape York Peninsula for generations - ever since Jimmy's Grandfather stole the land from the Oona aborigines and murdered two of their people. Justice caught up with him soon enough, but a darkness continues to hang over the property. The murdered man's son laid a curse upon the land, a curse that does not recognize guilt or innocence, black skin or white. Unless Jimmy can find a way to make peace between his family and the Oona, catastrophe is sure to follow!

The sea is the centre of Sonny Mendoza's existence. In the midst of a family of fishermen on Hawaii's Big Island it could hardly be otherwise. But Sonny does not love the sea. He is afraid and cannot say why. Eleven stories as vivid and beautiful as the sea itself take Sonny from age six to nineteen and tell a tale of change - in the boy, and in Hawaii.

Three New Zealand teens, Simon, Paul and Fiona, are all strangers in their own land. Simon is half Maori but has never known his father or his people. Paul was born in New Zealand, but has lived in America long enough to make his homeland an alien landscape and his childhood memories a pack of lies. Fiona is only Maori by desire: her "family" is Maori but while she speaks their language and knows their traditions, she lives on sacred land stolen from them long ago. All three are full of questions and contradictions, looking for themselves, for their country, and for some measure of truth.

On the day of her birth, Parvati survives a raging storm, a dancing figure of Shiva carved by her father wrapped in her blankets. This is a portent of things to come. Strangeness, power and magic seem to surround her and she is believed to have supernatural powers. But most extraordinary of all is Parvati's grace and skill as a dancer. She could be truly great - if she is prepared to make sacrifices.

A tale of starvation, treachery and kindness in post-war Russia, a glimpse of perpetual injustice in Germany, a silent war with a step-parent in England - these are just a few samples in this collection of sixteen short stories from around the world. Young heroes from Antigua, Ghana, Japan, Chile and Egypt battle for survival, independence and hope.

When she is just thirteen Koly's parents arrange a marriage for her. They can no longer afford to feed her. Then real tragedy strikes: Koly's bridegroom is very ill and in a few days she is a widow. Unable to disgrace or burden her family by returning to them, Koly must endure a life of servitude and ridicule with her vicious mother-in-law. Sounds like a medieval fairy tale? Perhaps. But the heroine of this story of modern India will need every ounce of her indomitable spirit to win her the happy ending she so richly deserves.