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.