Deborah Ellis

Young Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. Women cannot appear in public unless covered head to toe, go to school, or work outside the home, so the family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan.

Found wandering alone in a bombed-out Afghan school, 15-year-old Parvana mystifies American military forces by remaining silent, while spending her time remembering the past four years of her life, having been reunited with her mother and sisters and living in a village where her mother has finally managed to open a school for girls.

For two years, Ellis traveled across the United States and Canada interviewing Native children. The result is a compelling collection of interviews with children aged nine to eighteen. They come from all over the continent, from Iqaluit to Texas, Haida Gwaai to North Carolina, and their stories run the gamut; some heartbreaking; many others full of pride and hope.

‘My life is dust and rocks and rude boys and skinny babies, and long days of searching for my mother when I don’t have the faintest idea where she might be.’
Parvana is alone. Her father is dead. A refugee in a land full of dangers, she must travel across Afghanistan to find her mother and sisters.
As she travels, Parvana finds friends — a starving, orphaned baby; a strange, hostile boy; a solitary girl who darts...

"In this powerful collection of short stories, children around the world turn eleven and take a step into their futures. Each one is changed in ways both big and small. Annoyed at having to walk his sister's dog on his birthday, Connor heads into an undeveloped subdivision, where he comes across chilling evidence of a stranger's unhappiness. A girl sneaks away from her class camping trip to a local conservation area and experiences, for the first...

When normal American middle-school student Clare dies and comes back as a cat in the middle of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, she wonders if she should even try to do what she can to help since, after all, she is just a cat. Includes a conversation with the author.

"The day Farrin meets Sadira, she no longer feels alone. And when the two fifteen-year-old girls become close friends, they dream of a future where they will live together, where they will make something of their lives, and where no one will notice or care that they love each other. But Farrin and Sadira live in Iran under a regime so repressive that is considers homosexuals as deviants who must be eradicated. Unless they learn to hide their relationship...

"Winning a national high-school geography competition should be the high point of Jomon's life. So why does he find himself running through the streets of Georgetown, Guyana, later that same night -- so angry and desperate? Why does he heave his hard-won medal through the front window of a candy store? Why does a teenaged boy decide life is not worth living? "--

Born deformed, Anibus is considered cursed and is left in the desert to die, but after being rescued and raised in secret, she leads a nomadic life, finding acceptance with a colony of artists which includes Kamal al-Din Bihzad, the most famous master of Persian painting.

"Deborah Ellis, activist and award-winning author of The Breadwinner interviews young people involved in the criminal justice system and lets them tell their own stories. Jamar found refuge in a gang after leaving an abusive home where his mother stole from him. Fred was arrested for assault with a weapon, public intoxication and attacking his mother while on drugs. Jeremy first went to court at age fourteen ("Court gives you the feeling that you...