"Nora, let me tell you the story of the butter man."

The delicious fragrance of the long-simmering couscous fills the house, as Nora waits hugrily for her mother to return home from work and her father to finish preparing dinner.  To pass the time, Baba tells her about his childhood in Morocco and a much longer and hungrier wait for his father to bring back food and hope during a famine.

The lush colors of Julie Klear Essakalli's folk-art paintings highlight this poignant recounting of a young boy's lesson in patience and resourcefulness. It is based on the experiences of one of the authors, who grew up in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

From the dust jacket