Parvana is 11 year old girl that lives with her family in Afghanistan. She has older sister Nooria, five year old sister Maryam and baby brother Ali. They live in war-torn Kabul that has come under the rule of Taliban. Talibans have strict religious rules of life that they impose on all of the population of Afghanistan. They have closed school for girls and have banned them from attending. Other prohibitions that relate to women are even worse. Women are not allowed to walk by themselves or the be seen alone in the streets. Each time they go out of their homes they have to be chaperoned by a man even if that means a small boy. Women's rights are to great extent abolished and threatened. Women are not allowed to be seen in public without burqas.
Parvana's parents are educated people who completed their studies in England. Father limps on one lag as he suffered an injury to his leg after his school was bombed. Parvana goes with him to the market to sell the old valuable stuff they still possess. A lot of people in Afghanistan are poor and pretty much everybody comes to the market to sell and buy old goods. Great percentage of Afghanistan population is illiterate and Parvana's parents are among the raree ones that can read and write. Her father keeps his foreign history books deeply hidden in special compartment in his closet.
One day Talibans storm into their apartment and take away father to prison. The reason? He is educated in the West and Western ideas they don't like and perceive as threat to their way of life.
Even though Parvana;s mother tries to get him out of jail, she is beaten along with Parvana in front of the jail by the soldiers. In that scene we get to feel how cruel their society is governed by Taliban militia. Human life hardly has any value. People are easily killed in their homes, on the street or taken to prison for ridiculous reasons. As father is not coming back from prison, family has to find ways to support itself financially so they decide to mask Parvana as little boy. They cut of her hair and she goes everyday to market to earn money like her father by reading and writing letters to people. Dressed as a boy, she has no trouble being recognized as a girl and she can manage to feed her family. In the market she accidentally bumps into a tea boy, who turns out to be her school friend,Shauzia in the days when they attended school. Shauzia is also dressed as boy and sent to the market to earn for her family. The two of them develop friendship. Parvana's mother is very depressed and Mrs Weera, family friend moves in. Mrs. Weera with her strength of a character helps to organize Parvana's family now that father is away and tends for Parvana's ailing mother. With every day that goes by on the market Parvana, becomes more self -confident and reliant in supporting her family and making the decisions for herself. Her older sister Nooria goes with their mother and siblings to Mazar-e-Sharif in the northern part of Afghanistan where there is no Taliban rule. Parvana stays with Mrs Weera alone in their apartment. After certain time father is released from prison and they take care of him. One working day Parvana comes across another girl hiding in the old bombed out building. She takes this girl home where they hear her sad story. This girl escaped from Mazar -e -Sharif just after the Taliban captured the city. They killed a lot of people among them girl's parents. The girl managed to get to Kabul in a truck and was hiding where Parvana found her. At that point Parvana was very scared for her mother and siblings and got very depressed. Her friend Shauzia manages to get Parvana back to work at the market. By the end of the novel Parvana and her father decide to go to refugee camp near Mazar-e -Sharif where they will look for Parvana's mother and siblings. When saying goodbye to her friend Shauzia, Parvana and her agree to see each other in twenty years in Paris, on the top of the Eiffel tower.
I was deeply moved by the life and destiny of the main characters in this story. I felt so much for them and followed their every move in their survival and pursuit of happiness. The novel made me explore documentaries on Afghanistan, its people, history and current situation. By watching some of the PBS documentaries, I was able to get more insight into the lives of these people that have suffered so much. It also made me wonder what kinds of conditions are necessary to cause one country to fall under religious fundamentalism. I would have students write paper where they compare and contrast the main character's life to their own. I would have to explain the students some of the rules Taliban introduced when they came to power in Afghanistan. We would write down all the unfamiliar words and find explanations for them, specifically the ones that relate to the Afghan culture. We would research about different types of veiling that exist and the possible reasons it is used in the Arab world.
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