The BreadWinner- Deborah Ellis
This novel is about a family in Afghanistan and the situations they faced with the Taliban in charge. At the beginning of the novel the main character Parvanna`s father is arrested and thrown in jail. Being that males were the only people allowed out in public alone this left the family, which was all females besides the father, with no one left to go to the market to get food and sell the few items they had to make money. Parvanna thus has to dress up as young boy and take on the role of a male selling her items and buying food for the family. Parvanna transforms herself into a male to help her family survive. Through this ordeal Parvanna meets one of her friends from school Shauzia another girl who is hiding her identity by posing as a male. They bond together and create a very strong friendship and begin to rely heavily on one another. Parvanna`s mother and sister along with Ms.Weera begin educating girls in the secrecy of their own homes because girls are also not allowed to be educated at this time. Parvanna deals with many struggles and experiences through her journeys in the market place and has to deal with the risk of being discovered by the Taliban soldiers for being a girl. One day Parvanna`s father arrives at home being carried by two men because he is unable to walk and thus ends the novel the Breadwinner.
This novel I would also suggest to a younger audience of grades six to eight. This is a pretty easy read but brings up many issues that we as North Americans might not be aware of. There is theme of war that is explored from Parvanna`s perspective and shows the effects of war and the power the Taliban had over the Afghanistan people. Another theme is young people having to take charge of the family by masking her identity and pose as a boy in the market place.
This seems like an excellent book to read as a class trying to understand community and culture in the middle east. I believe that it is important to show how cultures differentiate and this book would be a good way to show it to students. This book would also help students understand how good that we have it here in the safe boundaries of Canada. I think that we can use many of the theories that we have studied to analyze this book using feminist theory would work perfectly.
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