elizabetta

A sweet quick 'n easy YA read. Great for middle schoolers, maybe 5th & 6th graders too.

Senzai tells this story about an Afgani family overcoming their travails and finding asylum in the US shortly before 9/11 with simplicity and without preaching. Told from the POV of 13 year old Fadi, we see how he deals with a family tragedy he feels responsible for, fitting into a new community, and the subsequent post 9/11 bullying/racism towards Muslims he faces at school.

I especially enjoyed this book because the US setting is in my own backyard so reading about SF Bay area sites was fun. I did like the ending and how Fadi's love of photography eventually helps him turn around the calamity that has befallen his family. I didn't quite understand the connection to the book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler that kept cropping up but that is certainly another great YA book. I would definitely recommend Shooting Kabul (the reference is to photography, not gunfire) for kids (and adults) as a simply told, straightforward look into how a Muslim family struggles to find a new home in a foreign land during a time of great tragedy in the US.