Lowly’s Book Blog

This book has been around for a few years now and one of many sitting on the library shelf untouched. However, someone who loved it had recommended it to a reading list and I volunteered to read it. Am I glad that I did.

Since September 11 the media has been having a field day with Muslims and the Islamic faith. On our nightly news programs they are clearly identified as evil, blood thirsty fanatics. This book presents very clearly another point of view.

Najmah is a young Afghan girl living under that Taliban. Her family has taught her to keep her head down and not attract attention, do her chores without question and help wherever she can. She is bothered by her older brother, but what little girl anywhere in the world isn’t. And then one day the Taliban come to her village searching for food. They take everything, including a newborn kid (goat variety) Najmah is hand rearing because its mother rejected it. Her father is selected for military service (along with almost every other adult male in the village). When Nur (the older brother) objects, he gets drafted as well. Suddenly Najmah is forced to become the responsible adult in the family as her mother, a few days from giving birth, slides into depression. But Najmah manages to keep the home functioning and even look after the animals that were grazing in the mountains when the Taliban came. That is until the bombs start dropping. The American planes hunting Bin Laden destroy Najmah’s village killing her mother and baby brother. Suddenly she is truly alone in the world and joins a refugee family heading through the mountains to Pakistan.

In Pakistan Elaine has opened a school for refugee children. Elaine grew up in New York, working as a teacher and attending night classes. Here she met a fascinating young doctor and fell in love. He was from Afghanistan and a Muslim. Elaine studied his faith as part of seeking to know him better, and found that it made more sense to her than the fundamental Christianity her parents had promoted.

I find it amazing this book got published in the States. It is very pro-Islamic and does not support American military action in Afghanistan. Elaine is portrayed as an intelligent woman who knows her own mind, and voluntarily accepted the customs and dress code required to live in a conservative Muslim society. Najmah is very much the victim of war and as such she is portrayed as a very sympathetic character. However, her determination to return to her home in Afghanistan leaves her very few options for her future.

This book is a wonderful read. The story is not bright and cheerful, but rather poignant and positive. I certainly will be promoting it to students. It is too important a publication to allow it to gather dust.

Ali is chosen as the one member of his family to escape the Taliban by fleeing Afghanistan into Pakistan. From there a people smuggler is paid to get him to safety. “What is the value of a life? Four Thousand dollars.”

But safety is a relative term. Ali ends up on a fishing boat in the Indian Ocean without a motor. In the distance they see a naval vessel and think that they are saved! But the navy is Australian, and the policy is imprisonment. This book is set in the days when the refugees were welcomed to Australia by Woomera. The bulk of the story is about the long year spent in the desert, the changing mood of the place during the Tampa ‘crisis’ and the sudden tightening of regulations on September 11. The story is interspersed with hope, a day at the beach, even a chance to go to an Australian school. But these events only serve to highlight the bleakness of daily life.

This book is one of many quiet protests by children’s authors about the treatment of children in detention centres. It is told soberly, and realistically without the humour of Boy Overboard or Girl Underground. But it seems sanitised for younger readers, and that trivialises the experience. Sorry, but I think there is better writing available in this growing theme.

It seems like refugees have been an issue in the media forever. And recently there has been an explosion of books for adolescents that seek to help Australian young adults understand the Islamic community. Lebanese, Pakistani, Afghan, Iraqi children appear again and again in literature for young people today. I am certainly not saying this is a bad thing.

Diana Chase is taking us back a few more years to the fighting in the Balkans. Remember Sarajevo? Occasionally a documentary on TV looks at the huge forensic problem of identifying the skeletons. This conflict popularised the term ethnic cleansing.

A few years ago John Heffernan wrote a poignant picture book called My Dog about this same conflict. Everyone was left wondering what happened to the little boy waiting for his mother to arrive.

In No More Borders for Josef, Diana Chase picks up a story where Heffernan left off. After Josef’s parents are killed an one of the surviving adult men in the village gather the women and children and send them off across the mountains to the border and a UN refugee camp. Josef at age 11 is torn between a sense of responsibility for the younger children and grandmothers and a desire to join the resistance. Given the task of scouting for the escaping group, he agrees to stay and help them to the border. This in itself is enough adventure for any book.

But Chase takes the story further. When the refugees arrive at the border they are taken in by the UN and the Red Cross does what it can to assist. Josef has arrived with nothing, no family, no money and only the clothes on his back. He cannot decide whether to stay in the camp or attempt to cross back over the border (now closed) to join the resistance.

Eventually the decision is made for him when the Red Cross locates his mother’s brother, now living in the Swan Valley. And Josef arrives in Australia….

All of the above happens in the first quarter of the book!! It only sets the scene for the story to follow. Hopefully I have said enough to give you an idea. The book only gets better from here.

Everyone has seen the ads – ‘Buy Now. Genuine Persian Carpets. Only $80, This weekend only.’ The Little Hero fills in the story behind these ads and makes very clear the true cost of those rugs.

Iqbal Mash was a very little boy when his older brother decided that he wanted to get married. There was no money in the family for the bride price, so they asked the local carpet maker for a loan, which 4 year old Iqbal would work to pay off. And so began 6 years of 12-16 hour working days behind locked doors in dark, cramped, and unsafe factories.

Iqbal had the courage to escape, twice. The first time he was returned to work by adults he trusted. But the second time he was found by a group of university students who were working to release children from their bonded labour. Over time Iqbal became an international spokesman for bonded children throughout Pakistan.

And then, at 12 years of age, he was assassinated.

This books is Iqbal’s true story, told to Andrew Crofts by the young man who found Iqbal and gave him a voice. This young man is now in hiding in Europe, powerless to help any more children.

This book contains a very powerful story, and one that needs to be told widely, again and again. Unfortunately the writing style resembles more a newspaper report than an engaging story. Sadly, Iqbal doesn’t reach out and grab your attention. Andrew Crofts should have read books likeChinese Cinderella or Mao’s Last Dancer, clearly chosen his target audience, and then tried to tell the story with a strong first person narrative.

In the afterword Andrew Crofts explains that a film is being made of the story. Good!