Eleven-year-old Malika lives in Ghadames, Libya, at the end of the 19 ^th century. As a Muslim girl just entering puberty, she understands that she will soon have to accept some limitations in her day to day life. She will no longer be able to run outside to greet her merchant father, for example, when he returns from one of his journeys. Instead, she must stay with the other women of her walled city who never travel further that the interconnected rooftops to which they are confined. But life among the women has its own pleasures, Malika begins to discover. She learns about some of the women’s rituals from her mother and her father’s second wife, Bilkisu, an independent free spirit who serves as a role-model for Malika. Bilkisu, in fact, lets Malika in on a secret: she is hiding a stranger, an injured man whom Bilkisu and Malika’s mother are nursing back to health, and he has agreed to teach Malika to read. French author Joëlle Stolz pulls readers into a fascinating time and place in a this superb novel peopled with memorable characters. (Ages 10-13)