Hip hip hooray! The Lost Heir is the winner of the 2019 Nautilus Award Silver Medal in Middle Grade Fiction. This honor is given to books with socially-engaged themes. Ari Ara’s second adventure, full of youth organizing, economic justice, and a fantasy world where street urchins and migrant workers build peace and wage nonviolence to stop the threat of war was a perfect fit for the Nautilus Awards. I am utterly thrilled and delighted. The Ari Ara books are magical. They’re enjoyable. Kids love them. Readers of all ages adore them. They’re teaching peace … and winning social justice fiction awards.
Want to read it or send it to a young friend? Here’s where you can get copies directly from me. Teachers, peace activists, and parents will all love this story, too.
Discover peace skills through these fantastic novels! The Nautilus Award Silver Medal announcement comes just as we launch our first-ever, intergenerational Peace Literacy Summer Program using the Ari Ara Series as the inspiration. Join Author Rivera Sun and an incredible group of guest instructors for this unique summer program that shares Peace Literacy skills through peace literature. June-August, you’ll get to read and explore all three novels in the fun and eye-opening Ari Ara Series (The Way Between, The Lost Heir, Desert Song).
Find out more about the Summer Peace Literacy Program here.
Each week, you and other participants will gather on Zoom to learn exercises in peace, nonviolence, and conflict skills that YOU can use to train others in your community. Guest instructors will present on topics that relate to readings in the books. This course is perfect for educators, parents, youth, peace activists, faith leaders, and others who yearn to teach peace in a fun and engaging way.
Thanks for celebrating all this exciting news with us. It’s a good time for stories of peace to be getting attention and recognition. We need them – and the inspiration to be those kinds of (s)heroes.