![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The Taliban extremists have transformed Afghanistan into a place Parvana can barely recognize. And she can do so only because she can disguise herself as a boy. The title character is Parvana, the preteen daughter of a Kabul couple who, when her father is arrested, will be the only person who can go forth to earn the family's nan, its bread. ![]() (Imagine if Anne Frank's diary had been published and grown popular while the family was still in hiding.) And the book didn't feel like an antiwar tract, it felt like an beautifully observed novel with multi-dimensional characters. When The Breadwinner was published in Canada in 2000 and the United States in 2001, it was a horror story unfolding almost in real time, revelatory even to adults who followed the news, let alone middle-grade readers. It's hard to imagine that any other children's book has cycled so quickly from tragedy, to hope, and back as this story about a girl's life under the Taliban.Ĭanadian activist Ellis traveled in 1997 to Pakistan to interview Afghani refugees. How sad it must make Deborah Ellis that this book still has ripped-from-the-headlines relevance. Published: Groundwood Books - October 25th, 2001 ![]()
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