Amara's Bahamian Adventures

The Island's Missing Song

by Zahria Fisher

One night, a conch shell sings in seven-year-old Amara's dream. The next morning, she finds a real shell on the beach, warm from the sun. When she holds it to her ear, she doesn't hear the ocean. She hears a girl her own age, speaking an old language, asking for help finding something that was stolen by time. Amara follows the shell's whisper through the turquoise shallows of the Bahamas, past limestone caves where old drawings curl like waves, and into a hidden village where the Lucayan people shimmer like light on water. They are fading. Their songs are fading. And one melody has only three notes left before it disappears forever. To save the song, Amara must find three missing pieces hidden across the island. Each piece is a clue — a shell bead, a canoe paddle, a memory of a feast — that teaches her how the Lucayan people lived, loved, and celebrated before the world forgot their name. Amara and the Island's Missing Song is a lyrical, luminous picture book about cultural memory, the power of listening, and one little girl brave enough to answer a call from the past.

• Children's Picture Books
• Story & Adventure
• Fairy Tales & Folklore
• Educational Nonfiction