- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Walker Books Ltd (6 Feb 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0744555973
- ISBN-13: 978-0744555974
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 422,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
An outstanding novel exploring the relationship between a young American woman and a refugee girl. Northern Afghanistan, 2001. When the Taliban takes her brother and father to be soldiers and the bombing of her tiny village kills her mother and baby brother, Najmah makes a dangerous journey over the mountains to Pakistan. Here she meets Elaine, an American woman waiting for her doctor husband to return from the front. Najmah joins Elaine's refugee school under the persimmon tree, until, sure that both their families are dead, Elaine tries to persuade her to go to America. But when Najmah's brother arrives at the school, still alive, she bravely decides to return with him to the village of their birth.
About the Author
Suzanne Fisher Staples is a former United Press International news reporter who has worked in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. She is the award-winning author of many acclaimed books for young readers set in south Asia and the Middle East, including Shiva's Fire and The Green Dog. She lives in Pennsylvania, USA.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
This book is moving and harrowing, but worth reading. It tells the story of people caught up in the conflict in Afghanistan and gives an insight into life there and in a refugee camp in Pakistan. My only criticism is that the end feels incredibly rushed. It was almost as though the author had been given a set number of words, found she was running out and finished the book quickly so she wouldn't go over. However, despite this, it's a good book, compelling in places and very easy to read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
14 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Under the Persimmon Tree
27 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
Under the Persimmon Tree is a look at life in Afghanistan/Pakistan in the months immediately following September 11, 2001 through the eyes of two women. One is Najmah, a young Afghan girl left alone with her pregnant mother when her father and brother are conscripted by the Taliban. Her mother and the baby are killed during an air raid over their village a short time later. Now Najmah must travel to Peshwar to find her father and brother, and save their land.
The other is Nusrat, an American teacher, convert of Islam, who came to Pakistan when her Afghan husband Faiz decided to return to his home to help those suffering because of the war. Their stories converge when Najmah is brought to Nusrat's home in Peshwar, where she teaches a school for refugee children. Together they seek answers about their families, and their future.
This is a heartbreaking story, with a solid core of hope and strength. There is no happy ending, yet the future does not seem bleak. This timely and thought-provoking book is sure to be a contender for this year's Newbery Medal.
The other is Nusrat, an American teacher, convert of Islam, who came to Pakistan when her Afghan husband Faiz decided to return to his home to help those suffering because of the war. Their stories converge when Najmah is brought to Nusrat's home in Peshwar, where she teaches a school for refugee children. Together they seek answers about their families, and their future.
This is a heartbreaking story, with a solid core of hope and strength. There is no happy ending, yet the future does not seem bleak. This timely and thought-provoking book is sure to be a contender for this year's Newbery Medal.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
A gem of a story placed in an unlooked for setting
16 Sep 2005
Format:Hardcover
This story unfolds through two perspectives: a young girl in Afghanistan and an American woman living in Pakistan, in the months immediately following 9/11. Their seemingly contradictory lifestyles share surprising similarities in their experiences, suffering and hopes, as the story draws these two together.
The narrative weaves a delicate path, sensitive amidst the hardship and loss of the period, and provides a convincing and compelling explanation for each character's motives.
The story climaxes with an ending that is poignantly true to its characters, despite the reader's wishes, yet is satisfying in its own brutal realism.
Surely a Newbery contender!
The narrative weaves a delicate path, sensitive amidst the hardship and loss of the period, and provides a convincing and compelling explanation for each character's motives.
The story climaxes with an ending that is poignantly true to its characters, despite the reader's wishes, yet is satisfying in its own brutal realism.
Surely a Newbery contender!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
An amazing testament to warfare and hardship
28 Aug 2005
Format:Hardcover
The year is 2001. Afghanistan is in the middle of a war between the Taliban and the US- backed Northern Alliance. The story follows two extraordinary people: Najmah and Nusrat. Najmah, whose name means "star," has lost almost all of her family to the fighting. Her only remaining relative is an uncle, whose sole aim is to steal the land that her father wanted her so much to protect. Najmah has no choice, but to accompany a family of travelers, as they are the only people, it seems, that care about her. The other main character is a woman by the name of Nusrat, an American living in Peshawar, Pakistan. Her school for refugee children under her Persimmon Tree keeps her mind away from her husband, who is working in northern Afghanistan as a doctor. Through a perilous journey, Najmah comes to live with Nusrat, and their lives entwine, as Najmah studies under the persimmon tree with other children who have seen more hardship in their young lives than Nusrat has seen in her entire lifetime.
This book was an amazing testament to those who must give up their lifestyle and possessions to warfare and hardship. "Under the Persimmon Tree" gives a face to all those who surrender all individuality to the western media, and are just masses of people in their eyes. I could not put the book down. I received the book on a Friday evening, and was done by Saturday morning. The way Suzanne Fisher Staples writes is both knowledgeable and empathetic. Her firsthand experience of the change of Afghanistan from a cultural center to a barren wasteland translates very clearly into the amazing and true-to-life storyline. Ms. Staples lived in Afghanistan from the time before the Soviet Invasion that changed the country forever to the time of the Taliban takeover. The ending leaves readers to wonder, and yet a sense of closure is within a close grasp. Under the Persimmon Tree is an essential to anyone with family members fighting in Afghanistan, who follow events there, or just want to learn about the war that seems to have disappeared out of our media spotlight.
Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
(...)
Preteen and young adult book reviews and recommendations
This book was an amazing testament to those who must give up their lifestyle and possessions to warfare and hardship. "Under the Persimmon Tree" gives a face to all those who surrender all individuality to the western media, and are just masses of people in their eyes. I could not put the book down. I received the book on a Friday evening, and was done by Saturday morning. The way Suzanne Fisher Staples writes is both knowledgeable and empathetic. Her firsthand experience of the change of Afghanistan from a cultural center to a barren wasteland translates very clearly into the amazing and true-to-life storyline. Ms. Staples lived in Afghanistan from the time before the Soviet Invasion that changed the country forever to the time of the Taliban takeover. The ending leaves readers to wonder, and yet a sense of closure is within a close grasp. Under the Persimmon Tree is an essential to anyone with family members fighting in Afghanistan, who follow events there, or just want to learn about the war that seems to have disappeared out of our media spotlight.
Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
(...)
Preteen and young adult book reviews and recommendations
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