Emily Green and Me, by Kathryn White

After years of illness, eleven-year-old Emily receives the heart of a seventeen-year-old boy who has died in a motor-bike accident. But the organ comes with an attachment: the boy who had it first is still hanging around. From 'up-there' he watches as she recovers - sometimes exasperated, other times with heart-warming tenderness.

Their worlds couldn't be more different. Emily is from upper-middleclass Cape Town and the boy was from pooer plot-dwelling folk living near Johannesburg. While Emily struggles with becoming a teenager, the boy's interjections are a laugh a minute - not even death can dampen his streetwse spirit.

Following the closely-linked fates of these two endearing characters, 'Emily Green and Me' is the poignant story of one life interrunpted and one that is just unfolding. A book for all of us who blink at the twin stars of life and death, and all that lies between.