Bound To Stay Bound

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Full Text Reviews:

Booklist - 05/15/2012 The 27 young people, ages 10–17, whom Ellis interviewed in Kabul and quotes in this volume, will grab readers’ hearts with the bravery of their hope (“Even in the ugly parts of Kabul, flowers bloom”); their ability to imagine better times; and their excitement in learning. Ellis, however, also clearly presents their brutal reality of daily life in a world ravaged by war. Designed for much older readers than Jeanette Winter’s Nasreen’s Secret School (2009), this title will pair well with Ellis’ Breadwinner novels. Because it is not fiction, though, the book will reach a different group of readers, in a different way. These speakers are not characters, functioning in a plot, but teens’ actual contemporaries, whose voices linger long after the reading. Many Western kids will have trouble forgetting 14-year-old Sharifa’s calm insistence on what is most important: “I try to remember that my house is not me. Where we live, it is very, very bad.” A powerful discussion starter on both current events and timeless issues of self-definition. - Copyright 2012 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 06/01/2012 Gr 7–10—With characteristic insight, compassion, and journalistic skill, Ellis presents brief interviews, collected during a 2011 visit to Afghanistan, with 25 young people, ages 10 to 17. Each interview is introduced with a photograph and helpful historical and cultural background information that provides context for the reflections. The diverse, candid voices include a land-mine victim, a child bride, orphans, a foreign-exchange student, a daughter imprisoned with her mother, an aspiring artist, a football (soccer) player, a museum worker, and girl and boy scouts. Despite family tragedies, economic deprivation, female oppression, and years of warfare and violence, these young people express remarkable hope for the future and a belief that life will get better. Their determination to get an education and make a positive contribution is inspiring. Readers who possess only a vague knowledge of the distant war and life in Afghanistan will find these stories compelling and motivating. An annotated list of support organizations and Ellis's personal commitment to social justice and peace may spur readers to learn more and become involved. A valuable, informative resource.—Gerry Larson, formerly at Durham School of the Arts, NC - Copyright 2012 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 07/01/2012 This nonfiction counterpart to The Breadwinner and its sequels consists of interviews of twenty-seven survivors of the Taliban regime and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, all between ten and seventeen years old. The interviews are presented in paragraphs with the questions removed, although it is fairly clear in reading them what sorts of prompts were provided; each subject, for instance, talks in a fairly consistent order about his or her family, current life, school (if he or she attends one), memories, fears, and finally, his or her hopes for both a personal future as well as the future of Afghanistan. First giving the name and age of each interviewee and often a picture, Ellis then provides context for the interview in a brief introduction that describes the larger cultural and historical reasons behind the particular situation the person finds him or herself in; these introductions are extremely useful in helping readers see the big picture of how the prolonged war has proven devastating to domestic life. A subtle but informative contrast then emerges as the interviewees describe how much better their lives are now than when they lived under the Taliban, and most credit the value of the education they are now able to receive for the hope they have for their futures. Some of the interviews remain bleak, however; in particular, the voice of a ten-year-old boy living in a refugee camp with nothing to do and little hope of change is heart-rending. Obviously useful for current events curricula, this book will also be valuable for inspiring extracurricular service projects; resources are included for further research. KC - Copyright 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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