Travel Destination: Kenya
Mwikali and the Forbidden Mask by Shiko Nguru
12 year old Mwikali is moving to a new school in Nairobi and just wants life to be normal. But when she meets Soni, Odwar and Xirsi who reveal that she is descended from an ancient bloodline of legendary Kenyan warriors, all hope of a normal life fades. Now, with an array of malign forces massing, Mwikali must delve deep into the past to discover her ancestry, learn to harness her extraordinary powers, and enter a race against time to defeat a village elder who has turned to dark magic in an effort to gain ultimate power...
Playing a Dangerous Game by Patrick Ochieng
Lumush and his three friends live with their families in Railway Estate, spending their free time in the countryside or in the yards behind the estate, playing a game of chance called pata potea next to the wreck of an old car.
When the boys' attention begins to wander farther, they discover a deserted house believed to be haunted. As they explore the house, they learn that it's not ghosts they have to fear but the malevolent Mwachuma. By day he works in his junkyard, but by night he and his accomplices steal coffee from the railway yard and smuggle it into the "ghost house." As the young boys are drawn into this criminal underworld, they face a mounting danger that threatens both themselves and their families.
The House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber
When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger.
City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson
In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn't exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city's most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill's personal study, she knows exactly who's behind it.
With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City's local gang. It's a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she's been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she's overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life.
Who Will Catch Us As We Fall by Iman Verjee
Growing up in the Nairobi of the 90s, a seething boiling pot of racial tension and conflicting cultural taboos, Leena and Jai are raised to believe in a Kenya full of possibility and potential.
But as they come of age and venture into a world of underground activists beyond the confines of their tight-knit East Asian community and closely guarded, gated compound, they start to see a country divided by deep ethnic allegiances and on the brink of something very sinister. Soon Leena and Jai find themselves entangled in a shady world of crooked policemen, seedy salesmen, prostitutes, and bohemian artists. As the city tightens its grip, so begins a dangerous game of corruption and conspiracy, where rebellions simmer, and a tangled web of power unravels as dark forces collide and disturbing revelations surface.
