Book #2 for the year is finished as of this morning! Another great one to start out my reading quest for 26/27. I love anything by Daniel Nayeri, so I was excited to have another one on the list for this year. And of course, it was another banger. I will say, though, that the story was less light-hearted than his two previous books I read (Everything Sad is Untrue and The Many Assassinations of Samir, Seller of Dreams).
A short summary: World War II, Iran. Babak and Sana are siblings who have just lost their father, a teacher, due to a misunderstanding in the mountains between troops and the nomadic tribe he was teaching. Babak has promised his sister that he will never leave her…but then they are immediately split apart. For a year, Babak works to save up money to take Sana away. Until the day his hard-earned money is stolen by the family he’s living with. It’s the last straw: he goes to Sana’s lodgings and they steal away in the night, hoping to find the tribe their father used to work among and hopefully be able to find a place there. They have no real plan, but no better option, either.
What follows is a long journey through the wilderness, involving a huge chalkboard, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets, a Nazi soldier with a vendetta against a Polish boy just trying to find his brother, said Polish boy and his sass, lots of mouth-watering descriptions of delicious-sounding foods, and a whole lot of communication and miscommunication.
I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite book by Nayeri, but it’s a sweet little tale that wraps all the threads of itself up nicely. Definitely worthy of the National Book Award and Newbery Honor it won.