Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms [Paperback]

Even a life on the untamed plains of Africa can’t prepare Wilhelmina for the wilds of an English boarding school in this “gripping, magical, and heartwarming tale of resilience, friendship, and hope” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Wilhelmina Silver’s world is golden. Living half-wild on an African farm with her horse, her monkey, and her best friend, every day is beautiful. But when her home is sold and Will is sent away to boarding school in England, the world becomes impossibly difficult. Lions and hyenas are nothing compared to packs of vicious schoolgirls. Where can a girl run to in London? And will she have the courage to survive?

From the author ofRooftoppers, whichBooklistcalled “a glorious adventure,” comes an utterly beautiful story that’s “a treasure of a book” (VOYA).Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms


WILHELMINA KNEW THAT THERE WERE some houses that had glass in every window and locks on the doors.

The farmhouse in which she lived was not one of them. If there was a key to the front door, Wilhelmina had never seen it. It was likely that the goats that wandered in and out of the kitchen had eaten it. The house was at the end of the longest of the farm roads in the hottest corner of Zimbabwe. Her bedroom window was a square space in the wall. During the rains, she sewed plastic bags to make a screen and stretched it across the frame. During the heat, the dust blew in.

Years ago, a visitor to the farm had asked Will about her window.

“Surely your father can afford a pane of glass?”

“I like to be dusty,” she had said, “and wet.” Dust and rain made mud. Mud was full of possibilities.

The farm roads were bald and redlC$