Book: The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
Ages: 10+
Relationship to country: Book takes place in Kabul, Afghanistan
Book in a nutshell: A girl pretends to be a boy to help her family
I started my world journey in Afghanistan. I started in Afghanistan because it is the first country in the world alphabetically. At first, I had planned to read through all of the countries alphabetically, but then Afghanistan was so interesting that I wanted to learn more and more about this part of the world.
The first book I read from Afghanistan was The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis. This book is about a girl named Parvana. She has to pretend to be a boy to make money for her family becaues only boys were allowed to work. When I started the book, I thought it must take place a long time ago because girls weren't allowed to do so many things. I was surprised to learn that it actually took place not very long ago.
I think the main idea of this book was to explain women's rights in Afghanistan. Some parts of this book were a little scary, and that is why I said older kids should read it. It was hard to read about all of the difficult things that Parvana's family went through. I will remember how brave she was. I loved this book and couldn't put it down.