Parvana’s Journey

By Deborah Ellis

The second book in the internationally-bestselling series that includes The Breadwinner, Mud City and My Name Is Parvana

In 2001, a war is raging in Afghanistan as a coalition of Western forces tries to oust the Taliban by bombing the country. Parvana’s father has died, and her mother, sister and brother have gone to a faraway wedding, not knowing what has happened to the father. Parvana doesn’t know where they are. She just knows she has to find them.

She sets out alone, masquerading as a boy, her journey becoming more perilous as the bombs begin to fall. Making her way across the desolate Afghan countryside, she meets other children who are strays from the war — an infant boy in a bombed-out village, a nine-year-old girl who believes she has magical powers over land mines, and a boy with one leg who is so obnoxious that Parvana can hardly stand him. The children travel together because it is easier than being alone. And, as they forge their own family in the war zone that Afghanistan has become, their resilience, imagination and luck help them to survive.

The reissue includes a new cover and map, an updated author’s note and a glossary to provide young readers with background and context. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. Parvana’s Fund supports education projects for Afghan women and children.

 

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.9
Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres (e.g., stories and poems; historical novels and fantasy stories) in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2002
• ISBN: 9781554980307

Deborah Ellis

DEBORAH ELLIS is the author of The Breadwinner, which has been published in thirty languages. She has won the Governor General’s Award, the Middle East Book Award, the Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and the Vicky Metcalf Award. A recipient of the Order of Canada, Deborah has donated more than $2 million in royalties to organizations such as Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, Mental Health Without Borders and the UNHCR. She lives in Simcoe, Ontario.

Book preview

ONE

A man Parvana didn’t know gave one final pat to the dirt mounded up over her father’s grave. The village mullah had already recited the jenazah, the prayer for the dead. The funeral service was over.

Small, sharp stones dug into Parvana’s knees as she knelt at the edge of the grave and placed the large stones she had gathered around it. She put each one down slowly. There was no reason to hurry. She had nowhere else to go.

There were not enough rocks. The ones she had gathered only went halfway around the rectangle of turned-up earth.

Spread them out, a man said, and he bent down to help her.

They spread out the stones, but Parvana didn’t like the gaps. She thought briefly about taking rocks from other graves, but that didn’t seem right. She would find more rocks later. One thing Afghanistan had was plenty of rocks.

Rise yourself up now, boy, one of the men said to her. Parvana’s hair was clipped short, and she wore the plain blanket shawl and shalwar kameez of a boy. There is no point staying in the dirt.

Leave him alone, another man said. He is mourning for his father.

We all have dead to mourn, but we do not have to do it in the dirt. Come on, boy, get to your feet. Be the strong son your father would be proud of.

Go away, Parvana thought. Go away and leave me alone with my father. But she said nothing. She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She brushed the dust from her knees and looked around at the graveyard.

It was a large graveyard for such a small village. The graves spread out in a haphazard pattern, as if the villagers thought that each person they buried would be the last.

Parvana remembered digging up bones in a graveyard in Kabul with her friend, Shauzia, to earn money.

I don’t want anyone digging up my father, she thought, and she resolved to pile so many rocks on his grave that no one would bother him.

She wanted to tell people about him. That he was a teacher, that he had lost his leg when his school was bombed. That he had loved her and told her stories, and now she was all alone in this big, sad land.

But she kept silent.

The men around her were mostly old. The younger ones were damaged somehow, with an arm missing, or only one eye, or no feet. All the other young men were at war, or dead.

A lot of people have died here, the man who had helped her said. Sometimes we are bombed by the Taliban. Sometimes we are bombed by the other side. We used to be farmers. Now we are targets.

Parvana’s father hadn’t been killed by a bomb. He had just died.

Who are you with now, boy?

Parvana’s jaw hurt as she held her face tight to keep from crying.

I am alone, she managed to say.

You will come home with me. My wife will take care of you.

There were only men at her father’s graveside. The women had to stay in their homes. The Taliban didn’t like women walking around on their own, but Parvana had given up trying to understand why the Taliban hated women. There were other things to think about.

Come, boy, the man urged. His voice was kind. Parvana left her father’s grave and went with him. The other men followed. She could hear the scuff of their sandals on the hard, dusty ground.

What is your name? the man asked.

Kaseem, Parvana replied, giving him her boy-name. She didn’t think any more about whether to trust someone with the truth about herself. The truth could get her arrested, or killed. It was easier and safer not to trust anyone.

We will go first to your shelter and retrieve your belongings. Then we will go to my home. The man knew where Parvana and her father had set up their lean-to. He had been one of the men who had carried her father’s body to the graveyard. Parvana thought he might have been one of the men who had checked in on them regularly, helping with her father’s care, but she couldn’t be sure. Everything about the past few weeks was blurry in her memory.

The lean-to was on the edge of the village, against a mud wall that had crumbled from a bomb blast. There wasn’t much to retrieve. Her father had been buried in all the clothes that he owned.

Parvana crawled into the lean-to and gathered her things together. She wished she could have some privacy, so she could cry and think about her father, but the roof and walls were made of a sheet of clear plastic. She knew the man could see her as he waited patiently for her to go home with him. So she concentrated on the task in front of her and did not allow herself to cry.

She rolled the blankets, her extra shalwar kameez and the little cook-pot into a bundle. This was the same bundle she had carried on their long journey from Kabul. Now she would have to carry the other things, too — her father’s shoulder bag where he kept his paper, pens and little things like matches, and the precious bundle of books they’d kept hidden from the Taliban.

She backed out of the lean-to, pulling the bundles out with her. She took the plastic down from where it had been spread over a ragged corner of the building, folded it up and added it to her blankets.

I’m ready, she said.

The man picked up one of the bundles. Come with me, he said, leading the way through the village.

Parvana paid no attention to the rough mud-walled houses and piles of bomb-damaged rubble that made up the village. She had seen many places like it, traveling with her father. She no longer tried to imagine what the village might have looked like before it was bombed, with homes in good repair, children playing and flowers blooming. Who had time for flowers now? It was hard enough just finding something to eat every day. She kept her head down and kicked at pebbles as she walked.

Here is my house. The man stood before a small mud hut. Five times my house has been destroyed by bombs, and five times I have built it back up again, he said proudly.

A flap of tattered green cloth covered the doorway. He held it aside and motioned for Parvana to go in.

Here is the grieving boy, he said to his wife. The woman, crouching over her needlework, put aside her sewing and stood up. Parvana was young, so the woman did not put on her burqa. Three small girls watched from a corner of the room.

As a guest, Parvana was given the best spot in the dark one-room house. She sat on the thickest mat on the floor and drank the tea the man’s wife brought her. The tea was weak, but its warmth soothed her.

We lost our son, the woman said. He died of a sickness, like two of our daughters. Maybe you could stay here and be our son.

I have to find my family, Parvana said.

You have family besides your father?

My mother, my older sister, Nooria, my younger sister, Maryam, and my baby brother, Ali. Parvana saw them in her mind as she spoke their names. She wanted to cry again. She wanted to hear her mother tell her to do her chores, or Nooria say something bossy, or feel the little ones’ arms around her.

I have family in many places, too, the woman said. She was about to say more when some neighbor men came into the house. She quickly took her burqa down from a nail, put it over her head and fetched the men some tea. Then she sat in a corner, quiet and faceless.

The men sat on the mats along the walls and looked at Parvana. They had been at the graveside.

Do you have other family somewhere? one of them asked.

Parvana repeated their names. It was easier the second time.

Are they in Pakistan?

I don’t know where they are, Parvana said. My father and I traveled from Kabul to look for them. They went to Mazar-e-Sharif for my sister’s wedding, but the Taliban took over the city, and now I don’t know where they are. My father and I spent the winter in a camp north of Kabul. He was ill then, but when spring came, he thought he was well enough to continue."

Parvana did not want to talk about her father’s growing weakness. For days, it seemed as though he would die while they walked alone through the Afghan wilderness. When they arrived at the village, he just could not go any farther.

For so long now they had been wandering from village to village, from temporary settlement to larger camps for people displaced by the war. There were times on the journey when his cough and his weariness were so bad he could not leave the lean-to. There was never much food, but sometimes he was even too tired to eat what there was. Parvana would scramble through the camp, desperately searching for things that would tempt her father to eat, but often she would come back to the lean-to empty-handed.

She did not speak to these men of those times. She also did not tell them that her father had been in prison, arrested by the Taliban for being educated in England.

You can stay here with us in this village, one of the men said. You can make your home here.

I have to find my family.

That is important, one of the men said, but it is not safe for you to wander around Afghanistan on your own. You will stay here. You can continue your search when you are grown.

Weariness hit Parvana like a tank. I will stay, she said. Suddenly she was too tired to argue. Her head slouched down on her chest, and she felt the woman in the house lay her down and cover her with a blanket. Then she fell asleep.

Parvana

Reviews for Parvana’s Journey

[anacarter-127109 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

i enjoyed this story, though at most points it was really sad. these three children had to live off the streets and had to be careful of the land mines placed everywhere

[elliepoole · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an amazing book! It was fantastic to read and was really easy to get through,because I didn't want to put it down!!

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this moving sequel to The Breadwinner, young Parvana sets out to find her mother and sisters, who disappeared shortly after the Taliban invaded the city where they were attending a family wedding. Disguised as a boy, she travels across the deeply scarred landscape of Afghanistan, enduring unimaginable hardship and sorrows. Forced to bury her father, she soon collects a menagerie of abandoned children around her, from infant Hassan to the injured Asif. But where can Parvana lead her new and very vulnerable family, and how can she - a twelve years old girl - ensure their safety in a country gripped by terrible violence?A powerful story of children caught up in the madness of war, Parvana's Journey is based - like all of the books in Deborah Ellis's Breadwinner Trilogy - upon the author's experiences working at a camp for Afghani refugees. Here are moments of almost unbearable heart-ache, as when Parvana loses her father, imprisoned in The Breadwinner for the crime of having an education, and only just restored to the family. But here too are moments of hope, however brief, moments when the human spirit asserts itself. Parvana's courage, her determination to help the other children, will inspire and humble readers who have never had to confront the horrors described.

[ferrisscottr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read this with my daughter.
She absolutely loved it.
I thought it was depressing as hell.
But
It really was written very well - gives you a look into what it's like trying to live and grow up in a country that's been in a constant state of war for the past 30 years.

[debnance_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Parvana is a girl in midst of a terrible war in Afghanistan. Her father has just died and she desperately wants to find her mother and siblings. She disguises herself as a boy in order to travel without great difficulty in her country. Everywhere there are enormous obstacles. She cannot find food. She cannot find clean water. She must travel across mine fields. She runs across a baby and a one-legged boy and a little girl who all travel with her, who all add to her burden of finding food and water and a safe place to pass the night. It’s a beautiful story of great struggle, told from the point of view of a child, who sees all the miseries of war and bravely asks why and dares to seek a life without the ongoing ugliness of war. It is Parvana’s memory of her friend who set off to find the purple fields of France that inspires her to go on, even after encountering the wailing woman, even after seeing the baby come close to death, even after trying to push the irritating one-legged boy on, even after walking for days with no food and no water. This is a book I can see myself telling everyone I know that they must read.A 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.

[minhquach-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book I have read last year, during term 1-2 in year 8. It was a great book, while reading it; I realized it was based on a true story, which actually taught me a lot throughout the process of reading it. It's a book that a lot of people can relate to, it's based on a girl pretending to be a boy to fit in and support her family. Since in Afghanistan woman weren’t allowed outside the street without a man with them and her father was in prison. Like most of us nowadays, we would do anything to fit in the crowd. I really had fun reading it, when I read one page I can’t stop but keep reading on and on until I finish the book. The book actually makes you feel like you’re at the scene. I would recommend this book for teenagers to adults, because the language used in it was quite difficult, for example it had some Afghanistan words. Some younger audience would have got confused. The only part I disliked in the book was when Parvana’s dad got token away by Afghanistan’s solders for having an education in England, I just didn’t get why they would do that. But overall, I loved the book and had a great and wonderful time reading it, it killed a lot of spare time that I had. I would rate it a 4.5 out of 5 since I basically liked the whole book.

[mathqueen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is the sequel to The Breadwinner, the story of Parvana’s struggle for survival in war-ravaged Afghanistan. After reading the first book, I had to continue reading Parvana’s story. She proved herself as a valued member of her family, not just because she was born into this particular family. She was willing to do whatever she had to in order to ensure the survival of the female members of her family in the absence of her father. In this book, she branches out and becomes a strong member of the war-torn country as she tries to find her family and becomes responsible for the survival of other children as well. Where the first book draws the reader’s focus to the plight of women related to the Taliban, this story focuses on the impact the war has on children. At one point in time, Leila, one of the younger children asks Parvana what the soldiers do with all the dead children. It is a reality of war that most adults try to avoid. When the young adult reader begins this book, he will be introduced to the perils of war related to children in a way that increases awareness, concern and empathy for their peers on the other side of the globe. Library Implications: This book makes a strong addition to a young person’s book collection. It brings students to a reality they have been completely unaware of in the past. While reading this book, students could do further research into the plight of the young child in Afghanistan. They could also investigate organizations established to ease the suffering of children affected by the Taliban and war effort. Students may even be compelled to create a project or event that raises contributions for that organization.

[srssrs_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the second book in a trilogy by Deborah Ellis, that follows the issues of women and children in war torn Afghanistan. She does a great job of instantly pulling in the reader to a fast paced plot with dynamic characters. Parvana is the hope for many in this story, and never loses hope of finding her family herself. This story is engaging, but at times very sad. However, Ellis does a fantastic job of bringing the issues of Afghanistan to young adult literature. With the purchase of any of her books, Ellis is donating a portion of the book price to Women for Women, an organization that supports Afghan women.

[okalrelsrv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A powerful introduction to the horror of war without leaving the reader too shocked to feel anything more. A beautiful story of very realistic, imperfect but endearing children in circumstances no child should ever have to suffer. I recommend it for adults and young readers.