Afghanistan has been the center of many cultures and empires throughout history. The country has been influenced by many major empires dating back to Macedonia and has seen a lot of violence in its history. We suggest the following books as a way to better understand the current situation in Afghanistan.
Picture Books
The Library Bus by Bahram Rahman
It is still dark in Kabul, Afghanistan when the library bus rumbles out of the city. There are no bus seats–instead there are chairs and tables and shelves of books. And there are no passengers–instead there is Pari, who is nervously starting her first day as Mama’s library helper. Pari stands tall to hand out notebooks and pencils at the villages and the refugee camp, but she feels intimidates. The girls they visit are learning to write English from Mama. Pari can’t even read or write in Farsi yet. But next year she will go to school and learn all there is to know. And that is a wonderful thing. Not long ago, Mama tells her, girls were not allowed to read at all.
Bahram Rahman grew up in Afghanistan during the civil war and restrictive Taliban regime. He wrote this story for all the girls who were not allowed to learn.
I see the Sun in Afghanistan by Dedie King
Ali’s Story by Andy Glynne
The sky of Afghanistan by Ana Aide Eulate
Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter
The Wooden Sword: A Jewish Folktale from Afghanistan by Redisch Stampler
Middle Grade
The Breadwinner
Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city. Parvana’s father — a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed — works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day, he is arrested for having forbidden books, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food.
Shooting Kabul by NH Senzai
In the Sea there are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda
Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples
One half from the East by Nadia Hashimi
Teen
The Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
–khaledhosseini.com
The Stars Beneath Our Feet by
Prince of Afghanistan by Louis Nowra
Adult
The Pearl that Broke its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
