Richie's Picks: UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE by Suzanne Fisher Staples

" 'So,' she says, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the flat of her hand, a gesture that seems so motherly that her throat closes. 'Do you need a place to stay?' The boy nods his head slowly.
"Nusrat reaches into a bowl on the table that stands in front of the window beside their chairs and picks up a bright orange persimmon that sits on top of a pyramid of ripe fruit. She takes the boy's hand and turns it palm up to place the fruit in it. She runs her finger over the calluses at the base of his fingers and below the center knuckles and looks up into his eyes, which watch her intently as she places the fruit in the cup of his palm and curls his fingers up over it.
" 'Well,' says Nusrat. 'Don't worry.' "

If you want some basic information about a foreign country, one place you can find it online is in the Central Intelligence Agency's "The World Factbook." In looking up Afghanistan in the CIA's "The World Factbook" I learned that as of 10 February, 2005 (which was when their facts were last updated), the population of Afghanistan was around 28 and a half million people. I also learned that the life expectancy at birth in Afghanistan as of 10 February, 2005 is 42 and a half years. (This compares to California with a population of 35 million and a life expectancy at birth of 79 and a half years.)

So, if I lived in Afghanistan, the odds are that I'd currently be dead for the past 7 and a half years.

Earlier this year I wrote about PINNED, a terrific story about two high school wrestlers from two different towns in New Jersey (where the life expectancy at birth is two years less than in California). As I explained in my write-up of PINNED, "In alternating chapters we get to know about complications in the lives, the loves, and the families, as well as the fears of these two young men who are clearly destined to meet at the season finale."

Well, in Suzanne Fisher Staple's latest book UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE, there are also a pair of main characters--young women who are clearly destined to meet up--and we similarly "get to know about complications in the lives, the loves, and the families, as well as the fears" of these two characters.

And since these are young females in post-9/11 Afghanistan--one there by birth, the other by choice--the complications and fears we're talking about are off the charts as compared to the average character in New Jersey, California, or just about anywhere else in the world.

"I know you're out there somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere
I know you're out there somewhere
Somewhere you can hear my voice
I know I'll find you somehow
Somehow, somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow
And somehow I'll return again to you."
--The Moody Blues

To see your father and brother conscripted at gunpoint into the Taliban, your opium poppy-growing uncle scheming to take away your family's land, and then watch your mother and newborn baby brother get blown up in a bombing by your so-called "liberators," seems like more than enough "complications" for three or four stories put together. But for Najmah (whose name means "Star"), a tweener from a shepherding family from Kunduz Province in Afghanistan, this is just the beginning of her story.

Then there is Nusrat. Nusrat was originally named Elaine. She grew up in Upstate New York. Years after the only person in the whole world who really knew her died, her sister Margaret, Elaine had immersed herself in a teaching job and a second job at an animal shelter. But she still couldn't get past the pain of Margaret's inexplicable death until she fell in love with her fellow Manhattan apartment dweller, Faiz, a handsome young doctor from Afghanistan who said her name should be Nusrat (which means "Help"). .

Now Faiz is off trying to save lives in a clinic deep in the war zone of Afghanistan, and Nusrat is just over the border in Pakistan where she spends her days teaching writing and 'rithmetic to refugee kids.

Because of the chaos of war, neither young woman has any idea whether their loved ones are dead or alive.

UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE is an uncompromising look into the lives and hearts of these two young female characters from the other side of the world. As she did many years ago in writing the Newbery Honor SHABANU, Suzanne Fisher Staples calls upon her experiences as a UPI reporter in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring readers as close to that world as they're likely to get in their (relatively long American) lifetimes. ( )

Najmah is just a young Afghan girl when the Taliban descend upon her village, take all of their food, and then take her father and brother away. Several days later, she sees her mother and new born brother killed by an American bomb. Najmah, who is barely functioning through her shock, finds herself impersonating a boy, and traveling with neighbours through the mountains to cross the border into Pakistan where they will hopefully find refuge. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, the reader also learns of Nusrat, an American woman originally named Elaine who converted to the Muslim faith, and followed her doctor husband to Peshawar. Faiz, her husband, has gone to northern Afghanistan to help with the wounded there, so Nusrat spends her time running a school in Peshawar for refugee children. She hasn't heard from her husband for quite some time now, and is starting to fear for his safety. Eventually, Najmah ends up at Nusrat's school, where she is fed, sheltered, and made to feel safe. The book does not end with the traditional happy ending, but instead remains true to the hearts of the characters. While not a happy novel, it does provide a thought provoking look at the lives of those living in Afghanistan. ( )

This book really puts you in the shoes of young people in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. ( )

During the 2001 Afghan War a young Afghanistan refugee, who is searching for her father and brother, crosses paths with an American Muslim teacher, who is awaiting her husband's safe return from Mazar-I-Sharif, Afghanistan, where he is running a clinic.

a bombing raid, while a young American woman teaches refugee children beneath her persimmon tree and longs for her gentle Afghan husband to return from the war. The author of Shabanu:Daughter of the Wind explores both the power of love and the destruction of war as the lives of these two characters intersect and are changed by both the Taliban and the American military. (Age 14 and up) ( )