The History of a Difficult Child

Ethiopian American writer Sibhat debuts with a humorous and insightful family saga set in the wake of the 1980s communist revolution in Ethiopia. Degitu Asmelash finds herself pregnant more than a decade after her last child was born. Before the Ethiopian emperor was deposed in a military junta, the Asmelash family were landowners and business entrepreneurs. Now, under the new Marxist-Leninist regime, the family keeps a low profile. Degitu’s baby, Selam, narrates the story as an infant, toddler, and tween. She rages when her wishes are unfulfilled and assigns naive, self-centered meanings to everyone’s actions. When her mother dies, her family doesn’t know how to tell Selam, so they let her believe that Degitu is just living elsewhere. Selam struggles to understand God; she fights bullies and longs to see the world, all the while observing the rituals and customs of her community. Like many children, she discovers that she is not the center of the universe, nor does she control it. Kenyan American voice actor Waceke Wambaa’s narration brings charm to the story, softening Selam’s rough edges as she struggles to understand the world.