Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swap

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard SelectionA 2024 Skipping Stones Honor Award winnerWinner of The Next Generation Indie Book AwardA Nile Book Award nominee for the White Nile Book AwardFrom the award-winning author of Small Mercies, named a Best Middle-Grade Book of 2020 by Kirkus ReviewsWhen Boipelo Seku learns about a man who traded his way from a paperclip to a house, he starts a trade of his own in his small village of Cedarville, South Africa, accidentally setting in motion a string of good deeds that will change his community forever.Ive decided that some people put out fires and leave the world cold and hopeless and others nurse the kindling, blow like mad and fan the flames with whatever they have at hand - so that everyone feels its warmth.A lot of things can feel just out of reach in 12-year-old Boipelo Seku's small, impoverished village of Cedarville, South Africa. The idea of one day living in a house that's big enough for his family is just a faraway dream. But when Boi stumbles on a story about a Canadian man who traded his way from a paperclip to a house, Boi hatches his own trading plan starting with a tiny clay cow he molded from river mud. Trade by trade, Boi and his best friend Potso discover that even though Cedarville lacks so many of the things that made the paperclip trade possible, it is fuller than either of them ever imagined.In a chain of events that turns Boi's tiny spark into a warming fire, Boi learns the power of friendship and community, and finds that somethings value isnt in what you can trade for it, but in the good it brings to the people you love.With a motley crew of characters, wholehearted humor, and a whole lot of hope,The Cedarville Shop and the Wheelbarrow Swapis a joyful read for lovers ofThe Penderwicksor classics likeThe Moffats.