Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy

Hardcover, 286 pages

Published January 1st 2011 by Arthur A. Levine Books 

In the tradition of SHABANU, DAUGHTER OF THE WIND and THE BREADWINNER, a beautiful debut about a daughter of Afghanistan discovering new friends and opportunities after the defeat of the Taliban.

Zulaikha hopes. She hopes for peace, now that the Taliban have been driven from Afghanistan; a good relationship with her hard stepmother; and one day even to go to school, or to have her cleft palate fixed. Zulaikha knows all will be provided for her--"Inshallah," God willing.

Then she meets Meena, who offers to teach her the Afghan poetry she taught her late mother. And the Americans come to her village, promising not just new opportunities and dangers, but surgery to fix her face. These changes could mean a whole new life for Zulaikha--but can she dare to hope they'll come true?

I must admit that this book has been on my shelf for a while and I haven’t read it. Why? I have no good excuse for you…especially now that I have read it! After reading Torn by David Massey, I knew that this book must be my next. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time not only because of the powerful story that was written, but because of the knowledge that I gained about the Afghan culture and people through Trent Reedy’s words.

Zulaikha was born with a cleft lip and when she is spotted by the American soldiers who come into her village, they make every effort to help her fix her lip. This is only the surface level of the story. Zulaikha’s life is full of many trials and tribulations that impact her life that we (as privileged Americans) will never comprehend. I loved that my eyes were opened to a whole other culture and way of life. As I am cleaning my house now, I will not complain about what little I have to do in comparison to the young women like Zulaikha. Every emotion from rage to heartbreak was brought out of me through this novel. At one point, I was scared that I was going to completely melt down in front of my students as we were all reading. Can you imagine those parent phone calls? “My son told me you blubbered about a character in a book. Are you sure you’re okay?!” Haha!!

This summer I read a book called The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam which had a profound impact on me and opened my eyes to other cultures that are often labeled as “terroristic” because of something that people from their nation choose to do. I loved in the “Author’s Notes” Reedy pointed out how he had a view of the people from Afghanistan as being the evil monsters who terrorized and attacked our nation. However, when he went to the villages to help these people, he realized that there was a difference in the “dangerous groups like the Taliban and the typical, peace-loving Afghan people” (p. 253). It is through books like this and the many others that are out there that over privileged American’s like me can learn to distinguish between the two as well.

Happy reading….

Torn by David Massey

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published July 30th 2013 by Chicken House (first published August 2nd 2012)

 

Witnesses to a mystery on the battlefield, a British medic and an American Navy SEAL confront Afghanistan's fog of war.
In war-torn Afghanistan, a girl walks right into a hail of bullets: Elinor watches it with her own eyes. The young British army medic risks the line of fire to rescue her, only to realize the girl is gone.
To find the missing, mysterious child, Elinor enlists the help of an American Navy SEAL. But in all the confusion, with coalition troops fighting every day to maintain a fragile peace, does Ben have something to hide?
Elinor came to Afghanistan with the hope of changing hearts and minds: What she's about to discover will make her question everything she ever believed about love and war.

A war thriller. A cross-cultural love story with an undercurrent of magic realism. A powerful debut set in modern-day, battle-scarred Afghanistan. This is TORN.

War is something that (sadly enough) every generation is now familiar with.  As I look at my children (the ones in my house and the ones in my classroom), I often wonder how it will impact them and if they will ever understand the impact of those who are fighting for our freedoms. Some of them already get it. They have parents or siblings or other family and friends who have fought in another country and even some who have lost loved ones in a war of some kind. Literature, I have found, is the easiest way to allow them some kind of understanding of war in the past and now with the help of David Massey, a new perspective can be found through the eyes of Elinor.

I absolutely fell in love with this book. The war in Afghanistan is one that is confusing for many and hits close to home for many more. As I grow older, I find that more and more people I know are enlisting (people from my high school and now my students) and I am watching the news trying to understand what is going on. There are a slow trickle of books available to students and everyone else to read that give some insight through fictitious characters as to what the war is like. I have even toyed around with the idea of a book about this very topic and began Torn as a research piece to see the perspective of this author. I certainly gained more than that.

This novel is beautifully written, action packed and opens your eyes to a situation in which we often forget about. The children who are impacted most during these wars. I am lucky enough to have the Scholastic Bookfair at school right now and this book is on it, so I am sending all of my kiddos to it and telling them they won’t regret it. Trent Reedy’s Words in the Dust is up next for me. Once I get on a kick… it is hard to get away from it!

Visit David Massey here and see more about him and his works!!

Happy reading!