So it has been WAY too long since I have posted.  No excuses.  I am going to be reading a lot of books this semester for my Young Adult class and I need to evaluate them so that's a good excuse to start blogging again! 

But first a bit of a recap.  Last May, I took a Multicultural Library Services class.  As our final assignment we had to create a reading list for a culture that we had not discussed in class.  I chose Afghanistan.  So I am going to list a few of those sources here.

The first was a DVD -

Families of Afghanistan  part of the Families of the World Series

An excellent introduction to life in cultures different from their own, this film focuses on two young girls in Afghanistan. Zamora is thirteen and lives in the country while twelve-year-old Madina lives in the city of Kabul. The video gives students the opportunity to compare their own lives with those of children their own age that face the realities of a country at war ever day. There is also a teacher's guide which includes a script, a glossary, activity guide, maps, and recipes. A resource guaranteed to provoke interesting discussions whether viewed at home or in school.

Next - a young adult novel, Thunder Over Kandahar by Sharon E. McKay about two teenaged girls in Afghanistan - Yasmine and Tamanna.  Yasmine has lived in England for as long as she can remember but her parents are from Afghanistan and decide they should return to help rebuild their country.  While walking to meet her father for lunch, Yasmine and her mother are attacked by the Taliban and her mother is badly beaten.  Rather than going back to England, her father decides to move them to a remote village where his ancestral home is still located.  Once there, Yasmine befriends a girl from the village, Tamanna.  Their friendship develops quickly and soon they feel like sisters.  They have another encounter with the Taliban at the newly opened school and the father decides that it is indeed time to take his family home.  Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.  Plus - Tamanna is scheduled to marry a much older man and would not be eligible to return to Britain with them.  As a result, Tamanna and Yasmine end up trekking through the Afghani wilderness in an attempt to reach Pakistan. It's a bit contrived but it does provide a unique insight into the life of girls and women in Afghanistan today.  

The last book I read is an adult memoir by Qais (rhymes with rice) Akbar Omar. 

The title is A Fort of Nine Towers: an Afghan Childhood.  

A wonderful book - it is amazing what Qais and his family endured (and are still enduring) in Afghanistan.  In the books that I read, competitiveness comes up often - but there is good competing and then there is bad competing. And as is so often the case, there is evil. Many of the people that Qais encounters are evil people. There is loss and horror but there is also laughter and hope. The Fort of Nine Towers refers to a place of refuge where his family lived for many years. They originally had to abandon their Kabul home because it was in a war zone and they went to the home of a friend of their father - the Fort of Nine Towers (although there was only one tower still standing). They did a bit of nomadic travel throughout Afghanistan but eventually returned to their refuge. Not always an easy read - but highly recommended.  

So - if you would like a bit of insight into Afghanistan -- try these books.  I would not read just one; you need to read several to start to get an idea of what is going on there.  It will possibly also give you some insight into the situation in Syria.