A review by onetrooluff
A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer

3.0

Another Newbery Honor title (1997).

I have to say, it took me quite a while to really get into this one. I think it could have been edited down to be a bit shorter. I did enjoy it, though; it's a really interesting survival story and would pair well with something like Island of the Blue Dolphins. Nhamo is a very impressive character. She certainly knows a ton about her environment and how to do all kinds of things.

The setting here felt rather nebulous; there are several mentions of there having been a civil war in Zimbabwe, but since I didn't know when that war took place, it didn't really help with the time frame. It wasn't until I read the notes at the end that I learned it was set in 1981.

I definitely learned a lot about the area and the various cultures and live there, which I appreciated.