I think this book it great! I got it as a present and i love reading about the daily life if Shabanu and the struggles they over come and the joys of life in the desert. ( )

This is a realistic fiction book set in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. It follows a 10 year old girl named Shubanu and her families story of the arranged marriage of Shubanu and her older story, raising camels in the dessert and the hardships that face a young girl living in a desert patriarchal culture. ( )

Multicultural Literature Book Review

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind. 1989. Alfred A. Knopf: New York.

Genre:
Fiction-Multicultural, Historical fiction

Themes:
Family Problems-loyalty, Multicultural-Islam, Muslim, Arranged marriage at a young age, Death

Reading Level:
Young Adult-High School

Awards:
Newbery Honor, ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Horn Book Fanfare Best Book Award, ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Award

Censorship Issues:
Arranged Marriage, Multicultural and Loyalty

Plot Summary (250 words or less):
Shabanu is about a young strong willed eleven year old girl that has to grow up so fast because of culture issues. The story takes place in the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan. She loves the life that she is living as a young girl that takes care of camels. Then her older sister dies and Shabanu is faced with an arranged marriage to the man that was suppose to marry her sister. Shabanu has to make a decision about marrying the man arranged by her father that is triple her age. If she marries him she will have to grow up very quickly and leave the life she loves. If she does not marry him, she could be put to death for not following her father’s orders.

Critique:
This was a good book. It was a little slow at the beginning, but picks up pace after her sister’s death. It was a little difficult to read because I had to go back to the glossary to figure out names of the characters over and over.

Curriculum Uses:
Cultural Relations-This book would be a good book to be used when teaching about East cultural. This book would be great to be read in a History class that is studying about the Eastern part of the world. I would recommend the teacher to read it aloud to the class and use it as a discussion book. ( )

Shabanu is a girl growing up in a family of nomads in Pakistan. She was raised to follow the rules: women do not make their own choices; they obey first their fathers and then their husbands.

Shabanu questions her life and longs to be independent. When a powerful man ruins the marriage plans of her older sister, Shabanu is ordered to make a huge sacrifice to uphold her family's honor. Will she obey or follow her own dreams? ( )

Probably realistic tale of a young nomadic woman coming of age. Took a while to get into, slowed down by unfamiliar names of people and things. The author kindly provides a key to character names, a map of the area, and a Glossary, which unfortunately for me, I didn't notice till the end. Made me want to know more about the people and the area of Pakistan. ( )

When eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom. 3rd grade ( )

Shabanu is faced with many opposing forces. She wants to be free, but she must fulfill the role that she is given as a woman. She loves her life in the desert, but she knows that when she is married she will have to move to an easier life of plenty away from the freedom she loves. This story offers a fascinating look at the world of Islam in Pakistan and the choices she must make as a young girl facing womanhood. ( )

Shabanu grows up in the Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. Headstrong and occasionally difficult to manage, she is nonetheless hard-working, devoted to her family, and loved by them in return. The descriptions of daily life among the desert people, the raising of camels and the constant worry about water, as well as the social customs of Muslims still attached to their ancient traditions make for fascinating reading. The difficulties Shabanu faces in a challenging and sometimes dangerous world add plenty of tension to the story, and her struggles as she reaches puberty and faces an arranged marriage will be of special interest to young adult women readers. ( )

Life for a Bedoun girl is limited to marriage and a day to day existence in the desert but a Western woman shows Shabanu a glimpse of another life- but can she take it? ( )

Shabanu is a free spirited Muslim desert girl who loves spending time with her family's camels and must learn the importance of following her elders and the gender roles assigned to her. Shabanu, her sister, her father and her favorite camels have personalities that allow the reader to connect to each character and become more deeply involved in the story. The story flows up and down with cliff hanger chapters that keep the reader wanting more until the end. The setting of the Pakistan desert is described well so that readers with very little knowledge of that area can put themselves in the story. This is a great book as evident by the number of awards that it has won and should be in a public library. ( )

One of my favorite books of all time. ( )

Tending camels. Arranged marriages. Living in thatched mud huts. Thirst. Moving from place to place. Monsoon rains. Enter the world of Shabanu, a world in which parking lots and pollution are replaced by stretches of sand and desert winds. Set in present-day Pakistan's Cholistan Desert, a twelve-year-old girl's nomadic existence is minutely chronicled in this 1990 Newbery Honor book. As first-person narrator, Shabanu is an intimate observer and recorder of images and events, and it is through her eyes that we, as readers, witness the beauty of a breath-taking opal sunset, the graphic birth of a camel, and the fineness of a gossamer shatoosh (shawl). Also through her we experience a wide range of emotions--fear in being forced to marry a man four times her age whom she does not know, grief over the loss of a beloved camel, the death of a grandfather. Hand in hand with Shabanu's joy goes pain, cruelty, and disappointment in a society that permits women to be beaten for disobedience, enslaved in marriage, or stoned to death for looking at another man. Setting is predominant here, and first-time novelist Staples is masterful at evoking scenery. Strange, exotic surroundings become familiar, even captivating. Clear, descriptive writing is the author's hallmark, and the integration of indigenous words, names, and phrases lends a realistic quality to the language. A helpful glossary is appended, as well as a map and list of characters' names with pronunciations, increasing the story's accessibility. The novel is not highly plotted, and young adults readers accustomed to plenty of action and drama may find the first half slow-moving. Although the pacing is different, patient readers will be rewarded. The shocking death of Shabanu's sister's betrothed comes late but quickly propels the plot toward its crucial outcome. Will Shabanu surrender her independence and accept the marriage dictated by family and society, or will she choose her own freedom even at the penalty of death? Her painful decision could not be more difficult nor more deeply felt, as Shabanu grapples with following her own heart and learning "the strength of [her] will and its limits." Self-reflective beyond her years, Shabanu is an intense, sensitive girl who feels "like a child struggling to know what it is to be grown." Shabanu's situation, surroundings, and story, while completely foreign, will stretch readers beyond limitations of their own geography. But it is her universal struggle to find inner strength and beauty, despite the odds around her, that hits home. (Megan McDonald, The Five Owls, March/April 1990 (Vol. 4, No. 4))

John Newberry Medal Honorbook, 1990
Joan G. Sugarman Children's Book Award Winner, 1989

This was an *excellent* story. I listened to it as a book on tape, and it was so riveting I brought it back and forth between car and house. Not just a teen read. ( )

amgrumm.spaces.live.com ( )