This pearl of a novel proves that strong characters, careful prose and refreshing wonder at the world can come in a small package. Kid Moses is Mark Thornton's powerful first novel, set equally in the streets of Tanzania's port city Dar es Salaam and in its vast bush wilderness. Thornton, who holds prominent positions with UNESCO and African conservation organizations, has also led safaris throughout Tanzania for two decades. His knowledge of Tanzania's resources underlies his narrative, but Kid Moses is primarily the story of the orphan boy Moses as he traverses his pre-teen years scrounging a homeless existence in and around Dar es Salaam.
Even more than he knows the country, Thornton has a keen understanding of the mind of a young boy with nothing but curiosity and a fatalistic sense of survival--for Moses, "when something happened, it happened, and when opportunity came up, he took it." Such behavior puts him in frequent danger, but for each mess Moses lands in, some sympathetic savior appears to lift him up--whether a disabled fruit vendor, a child prostitute, an orphanage schoolmaster, a nomadic Ndorobo couple or a professional game hunter who finds him lost in the bush. Relief for Moses, however, is only temporary. Thornton knows that there is no easy cure for the plight of a homeless Tanzanian orphan, and time brings its daily struggles: "The sun came up as it had gone down. Birds sang, but not much, and the day came about reluctantly and without brilliance." Kid Moses is a compact jewel box of a first novel. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.