Violently separated from her infant son during a military raid somewhere in the Middle East, Naimah navigates landscapes of war, poverty, and sorrow in her years-long search for her lost child.
Ajmal comes to understand not only his own but his mother\'s importance..
As the narrative moves between the stories of mother and son, Ajmal enters manhood and leaves his spirit guides in Perterra, rejoining the environs of men.
In an unforeseen complication, Naimah is going blind and fears not being able to complete her important work.
Ajmal comes to love them all as they, in turn, grow fond of their charge.
Anthropomorphic animals teaching the boy include the wise lizard Akeem
Ahura Mazda, the frog as a force for good
Makram, the generous and noble wolf
Baltasar, the protective, enormous brown bear
Faraj, the truthful snake
Shadi, the singing, wild goat
Saleh, the pious horse; and Yahya, the gracious chetah.
Ajmal\'s care and passage through childhood is educational, magical, and spiritual.
The young woman becomes a peace activist through her words and public readings; she writes stories and then a book about her search for her lost son.
She creates her own thought experiment around the concept of universal peace.
She makes discoveries through her expanded education and reads about Newton\'s thought experiment that leads to his hypothesis about the force of gravity.
As the boy moves across Perterra, Naimah suffers for her lost child but takes the advice of an old woman to, "take your shattered heart and build something." Naimah awakens to self-esteem and confidence as she begins writing about her difficult journey, recognizing that she has something to offer others.
In a thinning between realms, Ajmal crosses over into another domain of magic realism where he is raised by anthropomorphized animals.
Over time, she recognizes that finding her boy will be more difficult, but she looks for a tiny blue birthmark near her son\'s eye.
In parallel tales, moving between realms, Naimah searches for her son and her way across the world.
Beginning in a war-torn country, young mother Naimah is knocked unconscious then taken to a hospital where she slowly recovers from her wounds.
An anti-war novella/contemporary fable written for YA and adults, Naimah and Ajmal on Newton\'s Mountain exposes the very personal costs and brutality of man\'s ceaseless wars, the damage done to children and families.
The story leads mother and son further and further from one another until a thinning occurs between their separate worlds.
In parallel tales between realms, infant Ajmal is raised by mythical creatures who educate him in the best in mankind.
Violently separated from her infant son during a military raid somewhere in the Middle East, Naimah navigates landscapes of war, poverty, and sorrow in her years-long search for her lost child
