The Breadwinner
by Deborah Ellis
A Groundwood book, 2001, 170 pp., $8.95
ISBN-0-88899-416-8
Do you like a troubled situation in a series of 3 books?
Then you should check out The Breadwinner in a library near you.
The main character is Parvana.
She is in a troubled time of only when the men of Kabul where aloud out side, women where only aloud out with a man, but young girls like Parvana are aloud out to get water and things like that but not much else. There were also many gruesome sights and bombings roar as the explode every night not knowing if Parvana’s home is next.
If you did not obey the strict rules the Taliban a fierce merciless group of Soldiers they would take you to a jail and would leave you to die and given little food a day with no heat and it is wet and cold and unsanitary.
Parvana has two sisters the youngest besides Hassan her little brother is her sister Maryam. And oldest and bossiest Nooria.
Parvana and her family live in a one room house with vary little things just what they need They also had a hidden compartment in a toe shack where they kept a few British books from her fathers education there, it was hidden because they Taliban did not allow books.
Women and girls where not allowed to get an education but her father secretly taught her to read and write and learned to read English.
When on day the Taliban took her father away and they dress Parvana up as a boy and have her get money to provide for the family and that’s what the breadwinner means, and her old school teacher before the Taliban came, helped Parvana’s mother through the deep deep depression she was going through because her father was taken away by the Taliban, But before that her mother and Parvana went to complain at the jail there father was supposed to be at but instead her mother got beaten and Parvana did also. And Parvana’s old teacher created a secret school in Parvana’s home for girls who wanted to learn.
Some of the duties Parvana had to accomplish daily was letter reading.
When she was about to leave to go to a better place before then little things would be on her blanket in the market Parvana called her the window lady.
Until Nooria was to be married But Parvana did not want to go she stayed behind and her father finally comes home and Parvana figures out the Taliban is killing many people in where the wedding is to be.
What I like about the book is the fast pace action. And the book had a lot of detail to explain what was happening and making you feel like you are Parvana in this unpleasant time and also feeling the emotions the author wanted you to feel was a vary unique experience.
~ reviewed by Beth D.
