Carly

This contemporary fable combines luminous illustrations with a deceptively simple but deeply resonant story.

Carly is a small girl who must flee from her home when "fire falls from the heavens".

She wanders the countryside seeking food, a safe home, and human kindness -- but everywhere she goes she is turned away.

Rural villagers quickly chase her from their farms. Wealthy townspeople ignore her, too absorbed in their busy lives to notice a homeless girl. And poor families living on the fringes of the city have no food or shelter to spare.

The intrepid Carly journeys on, encountering a series of fanciful creatures who are also unable to accept her.

At last, wandering sadly in the rain, Carly comes upon a treehouse inhabited by a friendly being, dressed in jester's motley, who offers her a dry, warm place in his treetop home and introduces himself as a fool. "Is that what they call people who are kind to others?" Carly asks, as she settles happily into her new home. "If you will let me, I would like to be a fool like you".

Fuchshuber's highly original and vibrant illustrations give shape to Carly's world as seen through her eyes, from the mystery of an enormous forest to the overwhelming intensity of a crowded city.

With themes reminiscent of those in Maurice Sendak's We Are Down in the Dumps With Jack and Guy, Carly carries its compassionate message for adults about exclusion and its effect on abandoned and refugee children, while also reassuring young readers that they will not, finally, be left alone.

An animated video of Carly, produced by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, will be released around the world in eight languages in 1998.