I Am a Taxi by Deborah Ellis
For twelve-year-old Diego and his family, home is the San Sebastian Women's Prison in Cochabamba, Bolivia. His parents farmed coca, a traditional Bolivian medicinal plant, until they got caught in the middle of the government's war on drugs. Diego's adjusted to his new life. His parents are locked up, but he can come and go: to school, to the market to sell his mother's hand-knitted goods, and to work as a taxi, running errands for other prisoners. But then his little sister runs away, earning his mother a heavy fine. The debt and dawning realization of his hopeless situation make him vulnerable to his friend Mando's plan to make big money, fast. Soon, Diego is deep in the jungle, working as a virtual slave in an illegal cocaine operation. As his situation becomes more and more dangerous, he knows he must take a terrible risk if he ever wants to see his family again.
Deborah Ellis says her books reflect the heroism of people around the world who are struggling for decent lives, and how they try to remain kind in spite of it. Whether she is writing about families living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, street children in Pakistan, the coca protests in Bolivia, or the lives of military children, she is, as Kirkus attests, an important voice of moral and social conscience.
A lifelong small-town Ontarian -- born and raised in Cochrane and Paris and now living in Simcoe -- Deb has won the Governor General's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the University of California's Middle East Book Award, Sweden's Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and the Vicki Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. She recently received the Ontario Library Association's President's Award for Exceptional Achievement, and she has also been named to the Order of Ontario.
She is best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy, set in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- a series that has been published in seventeen countries, with more than one million dollars in royalties donated to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan and Street Kids International. Her recent young adult novel, No Safe Place (which has so far received starred reviews in Quill & Quire, Kirkus and School Library Journal), follows three teenagers who flee desperate situations in their home countries and make a perilous journey across the English Channel to seek new lives in England.
A lifelong small-town Ontarian -- born and raised in Cochrane and Paris and now living in Simcoe -- Deb has won the Governor General's Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the University of California's Middle East Book Award, Sweden's Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, and the Vicki Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. She recently received the Ontario Library Association's President's Award for Exceptional Achievement, and she has also been named to the Order of Ontario.
She is best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy, set in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- a series that has been published in seventeen countries, with more than one million dollars in royalties donated to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan and Street Kids International. Her recent young adult novel, No Safe Place (which has so far received starred reviews in Quill & Quire, Kirkus and School Library Journal), follows three teenagers who flee desperate situations in their home countries and make a perilous journey across the English Channel to seek new lives in England.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780888997364 |
| ISBN 10 | 0888997361 |
| Title | I Am a Taxi |
| Author | Deborah Ellis |
| Series | Cocalero Novels |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Groundwood Books Ltd ,Canada |
| Year published | 2008-03-13 |
| Number of pages | 208 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |