"Elena was beautiful - short, fat, with round cheeks and a big hearty laugh." Chapter One, p. 3

"I wondered if all old women thought of themselves as beautiful, or did they sing these songs to make the spirits think they were." Chapter Three, p. 21

"You might kill a boy baby, if he were deformed or you didn't want another child. But no Isabo had ever killed a girl child." Chapter Four, p. 27

"The old man had been bragging, of course. He had seven daughters and only one son - a powerful man, a man to be reckoned with, a man who had seven sons-in-law to work for him and only one child he had to give away to work for someone else." Chapter Six, p. 41

"These women were going to study babies! They didn't even understand how to make one. Unbelievable." Chapter Eight, p. 63

"I was glad Papaisi...