Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul, Afghanistan impose strict limitations on women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest.
Three stories detail the lives of Parvana, who dresses as a boy in order to provide for her family, and Shauzia, who lives in a widow's compound and dreams of moving to France.
When both her parents are unable to find work and pay the bills during the Great Depression, resourceful Sarah Ann Puckett saves the family from the poorhouse by selling her prizewinning homemade bread.
In this sequel to "The Breadwinner," the Taliban still control Afghanistan, but Kabul is in ruins. Twelve-year-old Parvana's father has just died, and Parvana sets out alone to find her family, masquerading as a boy.
On a military base in post-Taliban Afghanistan, American authorities have just imprisoned a teenaged girl found in a bombed-out school. The army major thinks she may be a terrorist working with the Taliban. The girl does not respond to questions in any language and remains silent, even when she is threatened, harassed and mistreated over several days. The only clue to her identity is a tattered shoulder bag containing papers that refer to people named Shauzia, Nooria, Leila, Asif, Hassan - and Parvana.In this long-awaited sequel to The Breadwinner Trilogy, Parvana is now fifteen years old. As she waits for foreign military forces to determine her fate, she remembers the past four years of her life. Reunited with her mother and sisters, she has been living in a village where her mother has finally managed to open a school for girls. But even though the Taliban has been driven from the government, the country is still at war, and many continue to view the education and freedom of girls and women with suspicion and fear.As her family settles into the routine of running the school, Parvana, a bit to her surprise, finds herself restless and bored. She even thinks of running away. But when local men threaten the school and her family, she must draw on every ounce of bravery and resilience she possesses to survive the disaster that kills her mother, destroys the school, and puts her own life in jeopardy.
The Breadwinner, Parvana's Journey and Mud City are already best-sellers. The three books tell the stories of children whose lives are unimaginable to most of us. Girls who can't go out, who see their families and friends beaten and starved, who are not allowed to go to school, simply because they live under Taliban rule.Alive with the sounds, smells and suffering of Afghanistan and the refugee camps of Pakistan, these three books are the inspiring stories of ordinary children with extraordinary courage.
Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award In this urban adventure story, Khyber, a smart, bold, eleven-year-old girl from a poor neighborhood, sets out to find her friend X, a mysterious homeless woman who has gone missing. The desperate search takes Khyber on a long, all-night odyssey that proves to be wilder than any adventure she has ever imagined.