Afghanistan ~ The Breadwinner

I'm going back through books I've read and locations for each, and I've found several that should be here.

The Breadwinner ~ by Deborah Ellis, 2001, YA fiction (Afghanistan)

This is the first book in Deborah Ellis's trilogy about Afghanistan, which also includes Parvana's Journey (2002) and Mud City (2003).  I've been looking for books that show girls doing brave and exciting things, and the little girls in these three books are amazing.  They must pretend to be boys in order to make a living for their families -- because girls and women were forbidden by the Taliban to be out of their homes without a man or a boy to chaperone them.

The Breadwinner was exciting to read because I had never thought about what a family would do if there were no men or boys in it.  Parvana's brother was out of the picture before the story begins, and her father was taken away when men came to their house.  Eleven-year-old Parvana had accompanied her father when he went out to sell items on the streets, and her sister is too old to pose as a boy.  It feels really strange to Parvana to have her hair cut short and to be wearing her brother's old clothes, but she finds she is able to spread out her wares on a blanket, make sales, and buy food for the family.

"A few days later, Parvana was sitting watching the tea boys run back and forth between the customers and the tea shop.  One of the boys almost collided with a donkey.  Parvana was laughing and looking the other way when a tea boy tripped on something near her and spilled a tray of empty tea cups all over her blanket.  The boy sprawled in the dust in front of Parvana.  She helped him gather the cups that had rolled away.  She handed him the tray and saw his face for the first time.  She let out a gasp and slapped a hand across her face.  The tea boy was a girl from her class" (p. 94).

So their family wasn't the only one in need of a "boy" to go out and work.

Though this is relatively light, because it's a children's book, this book taught me about Afghanistan just as I learned from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.  Well-written children's books can make me think as do the adult books.  I rated The Breadwinner a ten of ten, meaning I couldn't put it down.

Kurdistan ~ The Man in Blue Pyjamas

"I read 197 books — one from each UN recognized nation plus Taiwan and plus one extra territory voted for by blog readers.  They chose The Man in Blue Pyjamas by Jalal Barzanji from Kurdistan."  This is from an interview with Ann Morgan, who spent a year reading a book from every nation in the world.

The Man in Blue Pyjamas: A Prison Memoir ~ by Jalal Barzanji, 2011, memoir (Kurdistan)

From 1986–1989 poet and journalist Jalal Barzanji endured imprisonment and torture under Saddam Hussein’s regime because of his literary and journalistic achievements — writing that openly explores themes of peace, democracy, and freedom. It was not until 1998, when he and his family took refuge in Canada, that he was able to consider speaking out fully on these topics. This literary memoir is the project Barzanji worked on while in exile, and it is the first translation of his work from Kurdish into English.

Read Ann Morgan's own story on her blog, A Year of Reading the World.  She set up the blog in January 2012 and began reading English translations of fiction and occasionally memoirs from countries around the world.

France ~ Sarah's Key

Amy suggests a good book for France would be Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  Here's her review, posted today.

Sarah's Key ~ by Tatiana de Rosnay, 2007

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

I (Bonnie) read this book in 2010 and think it's a great novel to represent France.  Here's the first paragraph:

The girl was the first to hear the loud pounding on the door.  Her room was closest to the entrance of the apartment.  At first, dazed with sleep, she thought it was her father, coming up from his hiding place in the cellar.  He'd forgotten his keys, and was impatient because nobody had heard his first, timid knock.  But then came the voices, strong and brutal in the silence of the night.  Nothing to do with her father.  "Police!  Open up!  Now!"