A book you will not want to finish. I actually listened to this on CD and the reader is excellent - Claudia . The story is set in Lagos, Nigeria and told in the voice of a 12 year old girl as she moves from a city apartment with running water and electricity to a remote village where the local oil company is polluting the air and water and the locals are extremely poor. What the young girls learns as she deals with no electricity, no running clean water and basic living conditions, is that famil More...

I was looking for something a little different to read when I picked up Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson. A coming of age story of a12 year old girl is nothing new, but when it is happening in far away Nigeria, to a girl who is ripped from the comfortable Christian city life she knows and is thrust into a rural Muslim compound with almost two dozen people she doesn't know, that is new. Blessing thought her life was almost perfect, she adored her father and brother, loved her apartment, More...

This is a bookgroup book and I have to say my heart sank a little when I discovered it was yet another book about troubled Africa (think The Other Hand, Half of a Yellow Moon...), not because I'm not interested or troubled by it or because these books aren't good, but because although the books do inform and educate, when a reader has finished them, the story, for them has ended, but not for the people still living these lives in Africa...
However, I digress; the voice of 12 year old Blessing, li More...

This was my favourite book of 2011 and my favourite book to recommend to book clubs, teenage girls and women looking for a summer novel that will take them far away.
Blessing is our narrator. She is 12 years old. Her family is forced to leave their home in Lagos and move to her grandmother's village in the Niger Delta. Hardships abound but it's Blessing's grandmother, a wise midwife, who takes her under her wing and becomes her mentor.
The story and characters provide laugh out loud moments, heart More...

I quite liked this book - one of the best I've read in a long time. I tend to favor novels that explore the life or lives of a few people to see how their lives and relationships develop over time. Exploring both their strengths and weaknesses and finding the common threads that hold all of us together in some way.

The father of the children in this story was a huge disappointment, given that I'm a dad to two young children myself. At first I thought he was going to be some kind of jolly family More...

Story Description:

When their mother catches their father with another woman, twelve year-old Blessing and her fourteen-year-old brother, Ezikiel, are forced to leave their comfortable home in Lagos for a village in the Niger Delta, to live with their mother's family. Without running water or electricity, Warri is at first a nightmare for Blessing. Her mother is gone all day and works suspiciously late into the night to pay the children's school fees. Her brother, once a promising student, seems More...

Tragic, yet also a beautiful story. Twelve year old Blessing lives a comfortable life in high-rise apartment in Lagos Nigeria w/ her parents and older brother Ezikiel. That life is suddenly cut short when their mother finds their father with another woman. Due to lack of funds, they move to their mother's hometown village of Warri Nigeria, in the heart of the Niger Delta - Oil Region. They are appalled by the severe poverty and poor living conditions they are now subjected to, not to mention the More...

I love discovering debut novels that are so good I can't put them down. The Kite Runner and The Help were such books and now I can add Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away to my list.

At the center of the story is an immensely likeable and believable main character. Twelve year old Blessing lives with her family—mother, father and older brother Ezekiel, in Lagos, Nigeria. The relationship between her parents has always been tempestuous, but Blessing is truly shocked when her father’s infidelity forces her mot More...

Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson is a coming of age novel for the reader as well as the book's twelve year narrator, Blessing. The novel is placed in a world few of us know much about and the characters labor under circumstances that compared to our lives might as well be science fiction. Blessing's journey from a comfortable home in Lagos with her parents and older brother to life with an extended family she doesn't know in a village in the Niger Delta without electricity or running w More...

"Sometimes, things fall apart," said Grandma, "so we can put them together in a new way" (395).

Blessing and her brother Ezikiel have grown up in the most fashionable part of Lagos. Their family had their own generator, sent the children to a posh private school, spoke only English, and were easily able to afford special foods for Ezikiel who is allergic to groundnuts (a staple in the Nigerian diet). All that changes, though, when Blessing's father is caught with another woman. When Father leaves More...

Blessing and her brother Ezikiel live with their parents in an apartment in a Nigerian city, but everything changes when her mother walks in on Blessing's father with another woman. After the divorce, Blessing and her mother and brother go to live with her grandparents in Warri, a tiny village in the Niger Delta. She's never met them before.

Blessing's grandfather is a man of great (and failed) ambitions. He converts to Islam and wants to take a second wife. He attempts to get a job as a petrole More...

Blessing's comfortable world comes crashing down with the sound of her mother's scream. When her mother catches her father with another woman, Blessing and her older brother move with their mother from their affluent neighborhood to her mother's childhood village in the Niger Delta. Suddently there is no running water or electricity and her mother is gone all day to work in a nearby bar. Gunboys float down the river, as well as trash and oil; the river that she is expected to bathe in.

Yet Blessi More...

I received this book as part of a first-reads giveaway.

I just spent two days reading Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away and I was very impressed with this moving hearfelt book. It is told from the point of view of Blessings a 12 year old girl living in the Niger Delta. After moving with her mother and brother into a compound with her grandparents she has a wide range of experiences. Poverty and violence surround her but she is also surrounded by love and family.
Her experiences assisting her grandmother as More...

Told through the eyes of a 12-year-old child, “Tiny Sunbirds Far Away” is a story of a country struggling with poverty, disease, genital mutilation and the ever-present threat of violent death. Harrowing and haunting, Nigeria is a world of beauty, even as its people deal with the problems brought about by Western industrialization and old-fashioned cutting of women.

While the writing at times seems a little too sophisticated to emerge from a 12-year-old girl, you come to understand that Blessing More...

This book was amazing.

I loved the way that Watson used Blessing's narrative to add so much to the story. I love how you felt like you were at the compound and you were feeling what the characters were feeling.

The repetition of certain phrases, such as "Father was a loud man", really added to the effect of the book in my opinion and I really felt like it was Blessing telling the story because it was what had stuck in her brain.

I was surprised by how much I warmed up to Alhaji because at first he More...

Blessings seemingly perfect life is destroyed when her mother, Timi, comes home early and finds her husband in flagrante delicto with another woman. After the shouting and screaming, the reality of the situation is that the her father decides that he wants to be the new woman and moves out of the house. Blessing's mother tries to eke out a living for herself, Blessing and her son Ezikiel but she finds it very hard with the loss of her husband's income. But the final straw and deciding factor is More...

I absolutely loved it! When a writer chooses a twelve yr. old girl to be the narrator I often find problems with the characterization. Oftentimes the dialogue sounds stilted, the actions and thought not believable, but that was not the case here. Blessing, this 12 yr. old narrator is a wonder and a delight. The setting in Nigeria, in the Deltas area, is one I was not familiar with and now feel I know so much about. It is a novel about change, family, love and adversity. The characters are amazin More...

Powerful story of the Nigerian Delta (the Big Heart), and of the Western Oil Company raping the land and the people. The powerful story of the Ijaw and the Freedom Fighters. The mobile police are referred to as the Kill and Go. The stories Grandma told, and her ability to include and help everyone is inspiring. "It was better than drinking clean water" pg 200 Dan got Alhaji a job. "But money is not the most important thing, you see? I will be preserving the environment by teaching my less pollut More...

This has got to be without doubt one of the best books that I have read for ages. I have never been to Africa but the author has done some serious research. I know quite a bit about African culture and Christie Watson describing the soups, spot on. When something good happens african women generally will do a dance, Christie didn't miss it.

I was gripped from beginning to end. The story of how Blessings life changed from the city to the village is described thoroughly through the eyes of a child More...

Wow. This is one of those books that really sucked me into the story. I found myself thinking of the characters and their problems even when I was doing the most mundane tasks like cooking and cleaning. It's a story that stays in your mind long after you turn the last page.

Let me try to sum it up real quick. Blessing is a twelve year old girl and narrator of the story. Her and her brother Ezikiel are forced to leave the only home they have known and move in with their grandparents in rural Niger More...

I really wanted to like this book, which started very promisingly, more than I did. A fascinating setting, for sure, and some great characters as well. But the pacing is way off, the book creeps along, only to speed up, and then slow down again, with Blessing's too picturesque view point and studied naivete -- body parts growing bigger and smaller with characters' moods constantly is one overused metaphor -- a narrative mode that grows tired. The quirkiness and interest of the setting and certai More...

It is hard to review this book. I'll be honest, I bought this book because Amazon had the Kindle version on sale for $2.99, and who could pass up a deal? It was recommended to me based on past purchases, and really, it does blend in with the types of books I like to read.

What I got out of the book was a beautiful connection between a young girl on the cusp of womanhood and her wise grandmother. I must admit, being raised by my own grandmother, this was a touching part of the story that I did not More...

Author Christie Watson does an impeccable job of writing a divinely lyrical account of a young Nigerian girl, whose life drastically changes after her mother witnesses her father’s infidelity. A deeply moving tale of a family’s survival as well as a coming of age story of 12 year old Blessing, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away is a beautifully written story and moving narrative.
I was amazed by Watson’s ability to fully engage and enable the reader to be transformed to the sweltering heat, ruthless violenc More...

Five stars -- not because it is perfect (it isn't), but because it is wonderful.

This book took me by surprise. I'd read a strong review, so I put it on my list of books to get around to. Once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. I got very involved with all of the characters, found myself thinking about them and worrying about them through the day. The main character, Blessing, and the Grandmother in particular will stay with me a long, long time.

I was swept up in the story, but along the way More...

Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away is a wonderful book. Definitely one of the best novels I've read all year. Blessing is a 12 year old girl living with her parents and older brother in Lagos, Nigeria. They are well off as father is a government official. Mama works in a 5 star hotel. The kids are able to go to good schools and live comfortably in an apartment compound that prevents the poverty of the outside world from creeping in. Blessing can see the poor from her window selling goods and wandering the More...

Lots to say about this one. Need to write the review on the weekend.

ETA: Here's the review


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As soon as I saw this listed on Netgalley the title and cover caught my eye, but it was really once I realised that the book is set in Nigeria I was sold on it and I had to have it! While I don't get around to reading a lot of books based in Nigeria,and thoroughly enjoy reading about other countries in Africa as well, when I do, I find myself f More...

This is a very successful first novel, successful as a novel, I mean. I don't know about the sales. It's a coming of age story told by Blessing, a 12 year old Nigerian girl, and the voice sounds very authentic.
When Father falls in love with a younger woman and leaves, Blessing and Ezikiel and their mother Timi must leave their comfortable urban air-conditioned home in Lagos for Timi's maternal home near Warri, very much "on the other side of the tracks" (no electricity, no plumbing, no well, n More...

This book is lovely. It is funny. It brings to life a raft of endearing characters. I was somewhat apprehensive at first. The Niger Delta is somewhere I knew nothing about. Nigerian cities, yes, well maybe, but this swampy, oil rich, poverty-ravaged area? It couldn't have been further from what I know. What I generally read about.

Turns out it doesn't matter.

Nor does it matter that the book explores fgm, kidnapping, domestic abuse. It remains a lovely, warm book notwithstanding peopled by unforge More...

I so wanted to love this book. Blessing is a beautifully drawn character, there's a vivid and engaging supporting cast, humour, tragedy, a tremendous story to be told - but it just didn't grab me, and took me an absolute age to read. It really wasn't helped by the introduction from the publishers - "There have been only a few instances in my bookselling career when a novel grabbed hold of my heart from the get-go and held me tight until the last page". That builds quite some expectations - the b More...

For a coming of age story with such horrific incidents, Blessing, the main character remains amazingly brave and upbeat. Taken, as she is, from an environment which meets her needs and is comfortable and thrust into a village with none of the amenities to which she is accustomed, Blessing is left to sort out the turn of her life. At first she does this with the help of her older brother, but as bad circumstances find their way into the siblings lives, here relationship with Ezekial, her brother, More...