The End (of at least this one)

My Cover for Parvana's Journey

           This is for a school project and since I need one more post I will talk about this and some other stuff. 
            The original cover or at least the one I had was generic it depicted Asif, Parvana, Hassan, and Liela traveling through an Afghan desert. Mine has at least some symbolism this is hidden in the planes and some what in Parvana's face. In this picture Parvana is turning away from the land mine blast (It my not look like that, I'm only your average run of the mill eighth grade artist). There is a mass hidden behind the blast. From previous posts people can probably guess who it is. This freeze frame shows one of the major themes in Parvana's Journey, action and reaction and how it can effect your lives. As you can see this is Parvana's reaction to what happened also you can see the slight frown. I would have drawn her crying but i would suspect that she would try to be strong for Asif and Hassan. She couldn't have a complete melt down she still had to take care of them. Also Asif would presumptively give her grievance about her morning. 
            The planes also have some symbolism in them. In the book when planes went by it meant death and destruction. The first casualty form the planes was in Green Valley when one of the many bombs has impacts on green Valley destroying the p,ace that Parvana had found a home in. Many close calls happen after that. One of which almost gets Leila killed, this foreshadows her death. This close call was the last one Parvana witnessed. The last time in the book that anybody gets killed by the planes is when Leila dies. Some could argue that it was the landmine but, I like my theory. These planes were delivering food to the starved camp. Some of these parcels landed in the wrong place, a minefield. Leila Had before walked across a mine field with out getting blown up (lucky duck) and thought she could do it again. Her good intentions led her death sadly. So if the planes had not come or even put the packages in the minefield then Leila would be alive and not walking on a landmine.

Here are some more covers:





             The last thing to discuss is that rating and recommendations. Personally, this was not my favorite book there are many thing that Ellis. the author, could improve on. For example the book inched along until the ending pages. Where she started to kill people off and introduce some more depressing scenarios to speed up the book. The book was simple and basic the only hard part was trying to make it deep and meaningful. I not even sure how this got an award besides the fact that it touched a debatable topic. I would not recommend this book not just because it was a required read but, the straightforwardness of the book. My rating would be a five out of ten.  I gave a good view of what was going on in Afghanistan in a slightly more interesting way then reading a bunch of newspaper articles. Other then that it was so so.

Themes of Parvana's Journey

           The themes of Parvana's Journey were pretty basic once you found them and you can see them displayed through out the text.  Human rights is a given theme that has been explained in the pervious post so I'm not going to explain it now. The other BIG theme is your action and reaction is key to how things turn out. In many instences in the book Parvana face life or death chioces involving her self and ohters. Some examples are when Parvana finds Hassan could have left him there to mike journeying easier for her self but, she didn't. After that she man other pionts where she considered leaving him or Asif or Leila. Another time when the whole gang is traveling palnes start bombing the road the were traveling on. Liela runs out on the the road and starts yelling at the planes to stop bombing them (she is just a little girl; give her a break) but, Parvana being he heroin of the story swoops in and saves the day almost getting killed in the process. This sean in the book foreshadows what will happen later on. No, Parvana does not die if you are thinking that.  Other little themes like death, there is an abundance of it,and survival pop in and out of the book. This book doesn't go deep the main perpous is to tell what it is going on in Afghanistan through the eyes of the minority.  When viewed apon in that way the themes could be basic and the perpous is still fufilled.
           To make this post spicier i have a picture to go with the main theme, action and reaction:

 I like science. Which would explian the picture.

Some Annoying Points

              In this book most of the choices that were made were basic and simple. The hardest choices that Parvana made were those concerning ethics. Some of these were like leaving Asif or Hassan behind to die. One of the silliest decisions she made was when she and Asif let their hopes and imaginations go wild and dig for an imaginary treasure. They did find something but, it was a  box full of ammunition. This was scene was just there to eat up twenty pages. Later in the book Parvana's imagination makes life better for the whole gang (for your information that is Parvana, Hassan, Asif, and Leila). This place where they find refuge is Green Valley it was not named for its abundance of plants but after a mythical place that Parvana dreamed up. This fueled her persistence to make the valley she stumbled into the best she could. At this point in the book things were actually going somewhere.

In the begging the book was filled with useless wandering that had no direction except action and reaction and also finding little boys in the middle of nowhere. The whole book was just a story of a little girl with a hard life traveling  through  Afghanistan and how she reacts to it. The plot never really formed until after the mid-point. To kick start this plot Ellis killed off the most innocent character, a grandmother who had been devastated after a unnamed incident and was just getting back on her feet, literally. Then the resolution to Parvana's problem of trying to find her mother was very unlikely, well that’s fiction for you. After poor Leila dies her mother is suddenly there complaining of the amount of child deaths that have result form the war. This book should be for young readers because of its simplicity and predictability but, is not because of the abundance of death (well it does not go into detail but one can imagine) in the end.

The Very Begging

      The book I will take pleasure in scrutinizing, comparing and summarizing is titled Parvana's Journey.  The title needs to be revised, it sounds basic, but does reflect the majority of the book. If it were me I  would have titled it something along the lines of  "Letters to Shauzia" since the main character, Parvana, does write to her friend, Shauzia, quite often in the book.
          To start a brief synopses is in order. Parvana's Journey is a cute little tale of a lost little girl who finds a baby, a impossible little boy, a imaginative girl and eventually her mother. She travels through the desert in the heart of war torn Afghanistan in hopes one day she might bump into her long lost family. The begins with Parvana's father dieing leaving her to fend for herself. The majority of the book consists of her wanderings through the barren Afghan landscape and find the not so green, Green Valley, where she finds refuge for awhile. At this point in the story she has met and is caring for people mentioned before named Hassan, Asif, and Leila, in that order;also she has is taking care of an old lady they all call Grandmother. Sadly this frail old woman dies to speed along the story. At the end of the story this quartet of children find a refugee camp, this camp has been deprived of supplies because of bombings and when a supply plane unknowingly drops food containers on a mine field silly little Leila decides to go get one and blows her self up in the process, and after a few minute dies in Parvana's arms. It is at this time that Parvana finds her mother witnessing this tragic death. It finally ends as a cliff hanger never telling what exactly happened to Asif and also presents the chance that not is at a happy end in Parvana's life. To add on the depressing ending it leaves with and open end and you wondering, but that's what happens in Afghanistan.