Thunder Over Kandahar

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About Thunder Over Kandahar

Product Description A powerful novel of enduring friendship set amid the terror and chaos of present-day Afghanistan. Best friends Tamanna and Yasmine cannot believe their good fortune when a school is set up in their Afghan village; however, their dreams for the future are shattered when the Taliban burns down the school and threatens the teacher and students with death. As Tamanna faces an arranged marriage to an older man, and the Taliban targets Yasmine’s western-educated family, the girls realize they must flee. Traveling through the heart of Taliban territory, the two unaccompanied young women find themselves in mortal danger. After suffering grave injuries—Tamanna from a fall and Yasmine from a suicide bombing—the girls are left without the one thing that has helped them survive—each other. The book features stunning photographs by award-winning photojournalist Rafal Gerszak (The New York Times, BBC World News) that bring readers an immediate sense of the faces and landscape of Afghanistan. Filled with tension and drama, Thunder Over Kandahar paints a vivid portrait of the perils of contemporary Afghanistan. From School Library Journal Gr 7-10–When her British and American-educated parents' return to Afghanistan is cut short by a terrible attack, 14-year-old Yasmine is sent to Kandahar for safety. Instead, the driver abandons her and her friend Tamanna along the way, and they must travel on their own through Taliban-controlled mountains. Sometimes the story focuses on Yasmine, and sometimes on Tamanna, a bright but uneducated village girl with a limp inflicted by a drunken uncle whose gambling debts are to be paid by her marriage. Toward the end of their journey, the two encounter Tamanna's twin brother, stolen years earlier and now a suicide bomber. Tamanna is shot, and Yasmine is left alone in Afghanistan, with no memory even of her own identity. Eventually she ends up in Pakistan. Though the survival story ends with the appearance of her grandfather and the return of some memories, the author provides a postscript imagining her characters' more positive futures. In spite of unrelenting violence, along with grinding poverty, restrictive customs, and the horrors of war, what shines through this sad narrative is the love Afghans have for their country. The Canadian author of War Brothers (Puffin, 2008) traveled to Afghanistan and provides numerous credits for this gripping tale.–Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. From Booklist Suicide bombers, land mines, and other horrors of contemporary war drive the action in this fictionalized account of two young teenagers in Afghanistan, torn from their families and then from each other as they try to flee the Taliban. Yasmine, 14, was born and raised in England by her academic Afghan parents, who are attacked after returning to “help get their country back.” She becomes best friends with Tamanna, who is thrilled to be allowed to go to school, even as she dreads an arranged marriage with an older man. Like sisters, the girls help keep each other safe, and together they resist wearing the burka and face hostility for going out in public without a male protector. Then their world explodes, literally. There may be just too much going on here for many readers. But the girls’ alternating viewpoints capture the heartbreaking trauma, and concerned young people will be caught up in the issues, including the roles of foreigners and the UN, as well as the oppression of women. Grades 7-12. --Hazel Rochman Review The novel is perhaps best understood not as a fictional slice of contemporary conflict, but as a more enduring example of extreme circumstances inspiring selflessness. ( Foreword Reviews 2010-11-19) McKay...portrays the unsettled nature of life in a war-torn country and especially the plight of the women who have virtual