and earthly levels. This spiritual message of courage and faith cuts across all cultural differences.
The childhood of Djo is shown to be one of both great poverty and great love. Again, the message of the author is clearly meant to cut across cultural lines: all sensitive readers must feel empathy for Djo and his siblings and their parents as they struggle to survive, to find food, just as all readers must feel warmth from Djo's portrait of the love in the family as they make this basic struggle (14-15).
The entire book is an interwoven mosaic of hope and pain, fear and faith. Djo's story of his and his cousin Lally's determination to get an education on their own, a note of hope, is followed immediately by Djo's description of the broken teeth he suffered in the bombing that has put him in the hospital where he now tells his story.
Just as the bombing has led to his meeting Jeremie and their life
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