Listening for Lions, Gloria Whelan

Another middle grade orphan story, but this one's set a bit later than Victorian times, and is half set in Africa, and half in London.  This is one of those books that feels like it should be a classic written a long time ago, but no - it's actually fairly new, written in 2005.

Listening for Lions
Gloria Whelan
ISBN: 9780060581763
Read May 13, 2014

Rachel Sheridan is the daughter of missionary doctors sent to colonial Africa, and grows up among the Masai and the Kikuyu, learning Swahili and helping out in the rural hospital and the makeshift chapel.  The influenza epidemic is growing closer, and (as these sorts of orphan stories often go, and sadly - as doctors in early times often did) her parents succumb to the dread disease while trying to save others.

The interesting twist is that Rachel shares a single trait with a neighbor - a wealthy plantation girl.  Valerie Pritchard is a cipher, she's introduced and then dies almost instantly.  The twist comes in the bright red hair that both girls share.  With Rachel's parents newly dead, and the Pritchard's daughter likewise deceased, the nasty couple instantly ensnare the innocent missionary girl and make her part of their plot to wheedle and beguile a distant, England-dwelling Grandfather into passing on his inheritance to the Pritchards.

I have to say, these two are the most pathetic villains I have ever seen.  They are worse even than the De Villes in the book version of 101 Dalmations.  NOTHING they want to accomplish actually works, and they are so evil in such a pathetic venal grasping miserly sort of villany, that one almost feels sorry for them.

Obviously, good prevails, and unlike Peppermints, there are adults with functioning brains.  Rachel and Grandfather triumph, and Rachel begins a new chapter in her life, enriched by good friends and good English estate money.

I like that despite the fact that Rachel is a missionary girl, and that faith and religious practice is important to her personally, it doesn't play a huge part in the narrative - it's simply part of the background, like the lush vibrant descriptions of Africa, or the winding streets of London.  I greatly appreciated that the morals were allowed to stand on their own without being belabored.