Parvana's Journey

Author: Deborah Ellis

First line: A man Parvana didn't know gave one final pat to the dirt mounded up over her father's grave.

Why you should read this book: The sequel to The Breadwinner, this is a bleak and accurate portrayal of the human cost of conflict, which won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award as well as the Canada Council Governor General's Literary Award. Parvana, still disguised as a boy, but utterly alone in the world, wanders the Afghani countryside, eventually collecting a family of orphans more disadvantaged than herself. Landmines, war planes, and starvation figure prominently in a potent story that tears at the heart and, in the interest of realism, offers little in the way of a happy ending.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't want to spend the afternoon immersed in the very depths of man's inhumanity to man.