Overview

This is a story about a house gecko, a small reptile commonly found in most homes in Egypt. Gasser, however, is a gecko with gumption, who decides that there must be more to life than scuttling across ceilings and hiding from humans. Refusing to be satisfied with the tales told by the Elders of the family about the World Beyond Our Walls, he decides to take matters into his own hands and find out for himself. Having practiced a long-distance leap, he times things perfectly so that he lands on the roof of the Doctor's car just as he is about to set off. An array of bewildering sights, including the dazzling Nile he discovers really exists, leave him stunned but exhilarated - and smugly storing it all up to boast about later! His complacency is shattered when the car abruptly stops and he realises he's trapped in full view of what could be an unfriendly world (geckos are commonly viewed as undesirable in Egypt, a misconception that the story also addresses). His fears prove unfounded, as the kind Doctor not only befriends him, but lets him sit inside the car for the long drive back! Glimpses of his set-in-their-ways family pepper the story, including his Auntie Gamalat, who was set upon with a broom by the cleaning lady and insisted on regaling anyone who would listen with a blow-by-blow account of her exact feelings when she saw the broom heading her way, and the Elders of the family, fond of spinning tales during the long summer nights. Gasser returns as a hero, and while shying away from trying insert a 'moral' into the story (perish the thought), the underlying theme is the importance of finding things out for yourself, whether it's in Gasser's refusal to take his family's views of the world for granted, or in children's realizing that geckos are harmless little creatures that they can co-exist quite happily with.

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9781838369927

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Camellia Hamdy is a British-Egyptian writer who penned her first tale at the age of ten. She found an outlet for her love of storytelling by working as an advertising creative, taking pride in weaving a story into each 30-second commercial (preferably a funny one), and picking up a couple of awards in the process. An insatiable curiosity and a pair of eyes as silently watchful as Gasser Gecko's have spawned countless stories which she would now like to share with a circle wider than her children, sister, five friends, and a sympathetic tree. Aly ElZiny is an award-winning Egyptian illustrator born in Alexandria. He is a graduate of Alexandria's Fine Arts University and has worked in the fields of fashion design, interior design, and of course children's literature, for which he has won several awards, including the Lion Art prize in Russia, the Sharjah Children's Literature publishing prize and the Arab Children's Book Publishers Forum prize. You can follow his work on Instagram @AlyElZin

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