  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 06/01/2009 The personal pen-pal story blends with today’s violent headlines in this moving novel of two young people across the world who write to each other and discover their connections, despite their countries’ history of conflict. In central Illinois, Abby, 11, is smart but bored with school. To bolster grades so bad that she may be held back a year, she takes on a special-credit assignment and writes to a student in Afghanistan. Sadeed, a gifted student in his crowded one-room schoolhouse in Kabul, is chosen to write back to her, but the conservative elders insist that he use his sister’s name when corresponding with a girl. Told from the alternating perspectives of the two young writers, the novel, illustrated with appealing black-and-white drawings, never spells out the messages too heavily as both kids move beyond the outspoken prejudices and hatred in their classrooms and communities. Separated by so much distance, they share a love of reading and more, and Clements realistically develops their heartbreaking, hopeful bond. - Copyright 2009 Booklist. School Library Journal - 08/01/2009 Gr 4–7— A forced pen-pal exchange turns into an opportunity for real communication between Illinois sixth-grader Abby Carson and Sadeed Bayat, the best English-language student in his Afghan village. When Abby's first letter arrives in Bahar-Lan, 11-year-old Sadeed is asked by the elders to compose his sister Amira's reply; it isn't proper for a boy and girl to correspond with one another. But soon Sadeed can't resist telling Abby that it is he who has been writing to her. The third-person narrative alternates points of view, allowing for inclusion of intriguing details of both lives. Never a scholar, Abby prefers the woods behind her family's farm and the climbing wall in her school; in the afternoons, Sadeed works in his father's grain shop. In spite of their differences, Abby and Sadeed connect through their imaginations, and their earlier readings of Frog and Toad Are Friends . They learn, as Abby reports, that "people are simple, but the stuff going on around them can get complicated." Full-page pencil illustrations throughout add to the book's appeal. Clements offers readers an engaging and realistic school story and provides an evenhanded comparison between a Midwestern girl's lifestyle and a culture currently in the news.—Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD - Copyright 2009 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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