El primer libro de la fascinante serie Breadwinner de Deborah Ellis es una novela premiada sobre lealtad, supervivencia, familias y amistad en circunstancias extraordinarias durante el gobierno de los talibanes en Afganistan. Parvana, de once anos, vive con su familia en una habitacion de un edificio de apartamentos bombardeado en Kabul, la capital de Afganistan. El padre de Parvana – un profesor de historia hasta que su escuela fue bombardeada y su salud destruida – trabaja desde una manta en el suelo en el mercado, leyendo cartas para personas que no pueden leer ni escribir. Un dia, es arrestado por el delito de tener una educacion extranjera, y la familia se queda sin alguien que pueda ganar dinero o incluso comprar comida. A medida que las condiciones para la familia se desesperan, solo surge una solucion. Prohibido ganar dinero cuando era nina, Parvana debe transformarse en un nino, y convertirse en el sosten de la familia.

La edicion del 15o aniversario incluye un prologo especial de Deborah Ellis, asi como un nuevo mapa, una nota de autor actualizada y un glosario para proporcionar a los lectores jovenes un fondo y contexto. Todas las regalias de la venta de este libro se destinaran a Canadian Women for Women en Afganistan. El Fondo parvana apoya proyectos educativos para mujeres y ninos afganos.

Parvana es una chica afgana que acaba de perder a su padre. Sola, emprende la busqueda del resto de su familia por un pais desolado por la pobreza y la guerra. En su camino encontrara a otros dos ninos, Asif y Leila, y a un bebe. La historia de Parvana (protagonista, tambien, de El pan de la guerra, alandar 8) ofrece una vision honesta y solidaria de la situacion en Afganistan, y del coraje y la esperanza de unos ninos que luchan en circunstancias muy dificiles.

That was where she needed to be, in a field of purple flowers, where no one could bother her. She would sit there until the confusion left her head and the stink of the camp left her nostrils.

Shauzia has a dream. She dreams of getting away from the refugee camp in Pakistan and travelling to France. There she knows she would find a better life, away from the war in her home country of Afghanistan…

But escape is not so easy. Once she leaves the camp, she has no money, no food–and only her dog Jasper for company. But Shauzia is determined to find a new future for herself…

In this stunning sequel to The Breadwinner Trilogy, Parvana, now 15-years-old, is found in a bombed-out school and held as a suspected terrorist by American troops in Afghanistan.

The girl does not respond to questions in any language and remains silent, even when she is threatened, harassed, and mistreated over several days. The only clue to her identity is a tattered shoulder bag containing papers that refer to people named Shauzia, Nooria, Leila, Asif, Hassan — and Parvana. As she waits for foreign military forces to determine her fate, she remembers the past four years of her life. Reunited with her mother and sisters, she has been living in a village where her mother managed to open a school for girls. But when local men threaten the school, she must draw on every ounce of bravery she possesses to survive the disaster that kills her mother and destroys the school. Ellis’ final novel in the series is harrowing, inspiring, and thought-provoking.

It’s 2021, and the Taliban have regained power in Afghanistan. Parvana and Shauzia, the brave protagonists of The Breadwinner, must now flee to escape new dangers from an old enemy.

In Kabul, 15-year-old Damsa runs away to avoid being forced into marriage by her family. She is found by a police officer named Shauzia, who takes her to Green Valley, a shelter and school for women and girls run by Parvana.

It has been 20 years since Parvana and Shauzia had to disguise themselves as boys to support themselves and their families. But when the Taliban were defeated in 2001, it looked as if Afghans could finally rebuild their country. Many things have changed for Parvana since then. She has married Asif, who she met in the desert as she searched for her family when she was a child. She runs a school for girls. She has a son, Rafi, who is about to fly to New York, where he will train to become a dancer.

But Shauzia is still Parvana’s best friend. And Parvana is still headstrong, bringing her in conflict with her spoiled sister Maryam.
While Asif tries to get Maryam and Rafi on one of the last flights out of Kabul, the Taliban come to the school, and Parvana must lead the girls out of Green Valley and into the mountains.

‘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 and out of the minefields to find food.

Perhaps, with their help, she may one day be reunited with her family…

Imagine living in a country in which women and girls are not allowed to leave the house without a man. Imagine having to wear clothes that cover every part of your body, including your face, whenever you go out.

In this powerful and realistic tale, eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city during the Taliban rule. Parvana’s father- a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed- works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day he is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food. As conditions in the family grow desperate, only one solution emerges. Forbidden by the Taliban government to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy and become the breadwinner.

With the unexpected help of a giant prehistoric sloth, ghostly grandfathers return to help a suicidal teenager.

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 liquor store?

Why does a teenaged boy decide life is not worth living?

Arrested by police and detained in a jail cell, Jomon is jolted out of his suicidal thoughts by the sudden appearance of another teenaged boy – who claims to be his great-great-grandfather …

Meanwhile, across town, the pride of Guyana, the life-sized exhibit of a giant prehistoric sloth named Gather, disappears overnight from the Guyana National Museum. While museum officials argue over who is responsible for the disappearance and who is in charge of getting the sloth back, only Mrs. Simson, a museum cleaner, seems to understand what needs to be done.

And so begins a strange and marvelous journey, as Jomon is sentenced to a youth detention facility, and a succession of his dead grandfathers appears, each one of them a suicide victim. As the grandfathers argue among themselves and blame each other for their own fates, they keep a watch out for Jomon, to try to make sure he does not continue their family tradition.

In this short, fable-like story, Deborah Ellis comes at the timely and difficult issue of child suicide with restraint, compassion, and freshness, as the grandfathers overcome their own fraught histories to help their grandson, who in the end is aided by the appearance of a wondrous giant rodent, busy enjoying her own return to earthly existence.