The Breadwinner

The Breadwinner

By Deborah Ellis

11 ratings 18 reviews 18 followers
Interest LevelReading LevelReading A-ZATOSWord Count
Grades 4 - 8Grades 10 - 9Z4.529181
Publisher: Listening Library
Published on 1/1/2006
Binding: Hardcover
Number of pages: 170

Book Reviews (18)

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This is a great book, and it is very interesting when it came to Nooria became married, but overall, great book!

Ari grade 6 Ari grade 6

I really loved this book. It makes me feel grateful for all of the opportunities i've had in life as a female. It gave me more insight on what's happening around the world and the author does a great job letting us get to know Parvana. I really hope Shauzia makes it to Paris

I-am-bob I-am-bob

I love this book so much. It very got me in the story. I was thinking about the story when i finished it.

I love cake I love cake

i love this book it is amazing even though i hate writing essays I wrote one on this book and I enjoyed it.

It was a good and emotional book. but sometimes it got slow

opposite day opposite day

omg so good

fat fat

Parvana lives in Kabul, Afghanistan with her mother, her father, her older sister Nooria and two younger siblings, Maryam and Ali. Soon after the novel starts, Taliban soldiers come into her house and arrest her father for not having an Afghan education, instead going to university in a different country. Parvana and her mother go to the jail nearby to see if her father was taken there, but the guards are unhelpful. Soon after her mother becomes depressed and will not move. The family starts to starve, as they have no male escort and so cannot go outside. Her mother and Mrs. Weera decide to make Parvana disguise as a boy by cutting her hair and making her wear her dead brother Hossain's clothes so that she can buy groceries seeing as she is the only girl who was of age and her body had not developed, and as it worked so well she starts to do it every day. Eventually, she continues her father's business of reading and writing letters for people that can't. Parvana runs into a girl who she used to go to school with named Shauzia who has been put through the same experience. They start to work together and soon become close friends. They were never that close in school but they are now trying to figure out ways to earn more money. They come up with an idea of a portable "shop" by using trays to move their items around. To do that they needed money to buy trays. They find a way to get a lot of money by digging up bones from a grave. Parvana also meets a family friend named Mrs. Weera, a former physical education teacher who comes to stay with Parvana's family to help her mother get well with her granddaughter and takes charge of the household because Parvana's mother has become severely depressed over the loss of her husband. Eventually, Parvana's mother begins to feel better and eventually teams up with Mrs. Weera and a group of other women to write the Afghanistan National Magazine, smuggling it to and from Pakistan to be published. Throughout the book, Parvana grows closer to her older sister Nooria, and becomes more responsible and stronger emotionally as a person. She also becomes very close with a woman who appears in the window of a building behind where Parvana works. This woman throws small gifts onto her blanket while she is there. The climax of the story comes when Parvana's seventeen-year-old sister Nooria announces that she is leaving for Mazar-e-Sharif to get married to a boy, because there is no war and she will be going to college. She leaves along with her mother and younger siblings, but Parvana stays since she looks like a boy and her appearance will be difficult to explain and be kept secret. Despite being against it at first, Parvana grows to accept her sister's decision. Parvana remains in Kabul with Mrs. Weera. One day after work, she meets a runaway girl from Mazar-e-Sharif who is deeply upset. Parvana leads her home at night, and soon the girl, named Homa, tells them that Mazar-e-Sharif has been captured by the Taliban. Homa's family had been murdered by the Taliban, and she had been extremely lucky to run away. Mrs. Weera gladly takes her in and Parvana is very worried since the rest of her family is there. One day, Parvana's father returns home, being led by two kind men who found him released from jail, but unable to get home due to the loss of his leg. Mrs. Weera, Homa, and Parvana nurse him back to health, and the novel ends with Parvana and her father leaving to Mazar, hidden in the back of a truck. They will search for their family in refugee camps. Shauzia, who had been planning to run away from her difficult family so that she would not have to marry and could start a new life, tells Parvana that she will be leaving with some nomads. They plan to meet in 20 years in France, at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

illmanti illmanti

this book makes no sense at all and the book as nothing to do with bread.

It isn’t about bread! Breadwinner is the person who makes money in the family!

Illuminati Illuminati

The book has nothing to do with bread. The title is very inactract..

Little Cat Little Cat

OMG! I LOVE THIS BOOK!! It is amazing, it makes you realize what is happening in the World. I cried so many times during this book. I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH! I can not recommend this book enough. You HAVE HAVE HAVE to read it! ;)

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