Flying Up the Mountain
Ato and friends return in this moving and rousing follow up to Crossing the Stream.
Ato is finally going to Nnoma, the bird paradise his late father helped to build. But when he visits Nana to say goodbye, he overhears her talking on the phone about something hidden on Nnoma. Bursting with curiosity, Ato tries to find out more but Nana stays tight-lipped. Could it have something to do with the letter his father wrote him as a baby, the one that speaks of ‘enemy storms gathering’?
Ato and his best friends Dzifa and Leslie arrive at Nnoma where they meet Eyra, the mysterious owner of the island, and Hafsat, a sad-eyed girl who has also lost her father. They learn that they will be competing against other children to become an Asafo – an ambassador of Nnoma and a defender of the Earth – and taking on a series of missions to prove themselves.
But Ato has a mission of his own – to uncover the secret of what is hidden on Nnoma, and protect his father’s dream.
Elizabeth-Irene Baitie is a Ghanaian children’s book author. She has received the Children’s Africana Book Award Honor, the Burt Award for African Young Adult Literature, and the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa. She lives in Accra with her family.