Thunder Over Kandahar

December 1, 2010

Gr 7-10-When her British and American-educated parents' return to Afghanistan is cut short by a terrible attack, 14-year-old Yasmine is sent to Kandahar for safety. Instead, the driver abandons her and her friend Tamanna along the way, and they must travel on their own through Taliban-controlled mountains. Sometimes the story focuses on Yasmine, and sometimes on Tamanna, a bright but uneducated village girl with a limp inflicted by a drunken uncle whose gambling debts are to be paid by her marriage. Toward the end of their journey, the two encounter Tamanna's twin brother, stolen years earlier and now a suicide bomber. Tamanna is shot, and Yasmine is left alone in Afghanistan, with no memory even of her own identity. Eventually she ends up in Pakistan. Though the survival story ends with the appearance of her grandfather and the return of some memories, the author provides a postscript imagining her characters' more positive futures. In spite of unrelenting violence, along with grinding poverty, restrictive customs, and the horrors of war, what shines through this sad narrative is the love Afghans have for their country. The Canadian author of War Brothers (Puffin, 2008) traveled to Afghanistan and provides numerous credits for this gripping tale.-Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2010
Grades 7-12 Suicide bombers, land mines, and other horrors of contemporary war drive the action in this fictionalized account of two young teenagers in Afghanistan, torn from their families and then from each other as they try to flee the Taliban. Yasmine, 14, was born and raised in England by her academic Afghan parents, who are attacked after returning to help get their country back. She becomes best friends with Tamanna, who is thrilled to be allowed to go to school, even as she dreads an arranged marriage with an older man. Like sisters, the girls help keep each other safe, and together they resist wearing the burka and face hostility for going out in public without a male protector. Then their world explodes, literally. There may be just too much going on here for many readers. But the girls alternating viewpoints capture the heartbreaking trauma, and concerned young people will be caught up in the issues, including the roles of foreigners and the UN, as well as the oppression of women.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)