The Breadwinner
explores the realities for women under the role of the Taliban in pre-9/11
Afghanistan. The story centers on the life of Parvana a young Afghan girl who
regularly helps her disabled father at a local market in Kabul. University
educated, Parvana father gets paid to read and compose letters because most Afghans
cannot read or write. Parvana’s family of seven live in a bombed-out apartment
building in the city. Parvana is happy to leave each day to help her father rather
than stay home with her mother, sisters, and baby brother. Because Parvana’s
father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban and thrown in
jail. Without him the family cannot survive; women are forbidden to work, go to
school, or even appear in public without a male relative by the ruling Taliban.
A plan is conceived that Parvana will cut her hair and dress like a boy so that
she can make money for her family’s survival. Her disguise offers Parvana a measure of freedom unheard of for women living under Taliban control.
Disguised as a boy Parvana returns to the market to read and write letters. She even befriends another "boy", Shauzia, who is desperate to escape from her oppressive family and make her way to freedom. Together the girls witness unspeakable horrors perpetrated by the Taliban, but they also gain a sense of their own self-worth, which helps them to develop the confidence to try to control their own destiny in the face oppression.
One of the most important over arching themes of the book is social justice and human rights. The women in the Breadwinner, are subjected to brutal beatings, forced to live their lives indoors regardless of their circumstances, condemned to illiteracy, and if there are no male relatives to look after them a life of poverty and possibly starvation. The book was written in 2002, three years before the US invasion of Afghanistan. Currently, there are still areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan under Taliban control. They are at war with the current Afghan government, which will be on its own to defend itself against Taliban control by the end of 2014. It remains to be seen how the status of woman will protected.
In the classroom:
I would use this book to supplement a unit on Islam, which I would tie in with current events about the middle East and human rights issues (perhaps compare the US Bill of Rights with UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Disguised as a boy Parvana returns to the market to read and write letters. She even befriends another "boy", Shauzia, who is desperate to escape from her oppressive family and make her way to freedom. Together the girls witness unspeakable horrors perpetrated by the Taliban, but they also gain a sense of their own self-worth, which helps them to develop the confidence to try to control their own destiny in the face oppression.
One of the most important over arching themes of the book is social justice and human rights. The women in the Breadwinner, are subjected to brutal beatings, forced to live their lives indoors regardless of their circumstances, condemned to illiteracy, and if there are no male relatives to look after them a life of poverty and possibly starvation. The book was written in 2002, three years before the US invasion of Afghanistan. Currently, there are still areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan under Taliban control. They are at war with the current Afghan government, which will be on its own to defend itself against Taliban control by the end of 2014. It remains to be seen how the status of woman will protected.
In the classroom:
Lexile Level: 630
Grade Level: 7th grade and up
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