A harrowing story about Nadira, a Pakistani teenager who is considered damaged goods, having paid for a crime that her older brother never committed, leaving her with a scarred face and abused young body. When her little brother is sold by her ruthlessly greedy uncle to work as a camel jockey for rich sheiks, Nadira disguises herself as a boy, gets herself sold into the desert, and enters an unimaginably brutal life of child exploitation. She survives – and helps the other young boys survive – by telling stories, à la Scheherazade, determined she will find her young brother and somehow return them both to safety and freedom.
Review: “In Celebration of Asian Pacific American Month: New & Notable Books,” The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2007
Readers: Young Adult
Published: 2007
Breathtaking, heartbreaking account of the women trapped for generations in Pakistan’s pleasure quarter – once beloved, artistically gifted courtesans now reduced to devastating prostitution.
Personal favorite of the month – and favorite of many others as it won the 
Not exactly one of the newest titles (it arrived later than sooner on my desk), but certainly noteworthy because of its subject matter. It opens with the Pakistani birth of Sadika – an unwanted daughter – and moves swiftly along through her coming of age, her lack of marriage prospects, and her eventual blossoming as an independent young woman. A sense of “you GO, girl” keeps moving the story, and you can’t help but root for naïve Sadika as she finally claims her own voice and learns to navigate a discovered newly sense of self.
Another tale of Pakistan (finally, multiple entries in this area!), this one a lyrically written love story – with all sorts of obstacles, of course – about a modern daughter running an inherited silk factory, and a Massachusetts-educated student returning to Karachi for his father’s funeral. The story is woven together with bits and pieces of the lovers’ perspectives, mixed in with the overarching story of their lives together – and apart.
In rural Pakistan, little Rani is sure that her mother loves Bibi, the pet chicken, more than she loves Rani. Rani even secretly threatens to eat the chicken. But when Bibi disappears, and Rani discovers Bibi’s newly hatched chick, Buchi, she learns what true chicken love can be. … Sibling rivalry comes in all kinds of forms!
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