• Age: 3 to 7
• Grade: p to 2

See below for English description.

Séparé de sa famille, Deo vit dans un camp de réfugiés au nord-ouest de la Tanzanie. Il adore jouer au soccer, mais il n'a pas de ballon. Grâce à son ingéniosité, il en fabrique un avec des feuilles de bananier. Un jour, un entraîneur arrive au camp et rassemble les enfants pour une partie de soccer. Deo n'est pas rassuré, car il y a un intimidateur dans son équipe, celui qui s'en prend toujours à lui. Mais le plaisir du jeu et l'esprit d'équipe viendront à bout des tensions, et de cette joie partagée naîtra un sentiment d'appartenance réconfortant et réconciliateur.

Inspiré d'une histoire vraie, le récit de Katie Smith Milway démontre comment le jeu peut unir les jeunes et les aider à s'accepter les uns les autres. Ce récit est un excellent point de départ pour aborder le thème de la justice sociale dans le monde.

Separated from his family, 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.

Based on a true story, Katie Smith Milway's inspiring tale shows how a desperate situation can be improved by finding common ground through play. It provides a perfect starting point for discussing the social justice issues surrounding the growing number of refugees worldwide.

Original title: The Banana-Leaf Ball: How Play Can Change the World

Katie Smith Milway is the bestselling, award-winning author of One Hen and several other books in the CitizenKid collection. She has served on the board of World Vision US, coordinated community development programs in Latin America and Africa for Food for the Hungry International, written several adult books on sustainable development, and advised NGOs and social impact funders in her roles at The Bridgespan Group, MilwayPLUS and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A graduate of Stanford University and INSEAD, Katie has spent more than three decades working on sustainable development issues. She is based in Seattle, Washington, and Bowen Island, British Columbia. Free curriculum related to One Hen themes can be found at www.onehen.org.

Katie Smith Milway's profile page

Shane Evans' profile page