Deborah Ellis (1) (1960–)

An absolutely chilling story about a teenager who betrays a friend wrongly accused of murder. So great is narrator Jessica's desire to be accepted by the popular crowd that she fails to speak up in defense of her friend and in fact makes statements which support her academically gifted but eccentric friend Casey's "guilt" in the murder of a young child at a summer camp where both girls were counselors. This is a brilliant, compelling, and extremely dark novel about the human shadow. Ellis show more exposes part of the human psyche many of us would prefer not to look at or admit to. Ellis's revelation of the true murderer very close to the end of the book was a little too pat, hence my less than perfect score; however, the somewhat open-ended conclusion is otherwise in keeping with the overall tenor of the book. This is an uncomfortably well-told narrative. While not graphic or sensational in any way, the subject matter may make some readers uncomfortable, and the book is probably best read by teens 13 and up. show less

Beautifully written, in a voice I felt was well-developed, which carried a story that was heart-breakingly told. Sometimes YA novels wrap up too neatly; I'm not sure that authors do this because they have a page count they can't go beyond, or if they fear not having some kind of reasonably happy ending. Oddly enough, I find this when authors are writing about marginalized characters, which has the unfortunate end result of feeling like a tokenistic approach. Ellis is writing this as the show more first in a trilogy, which gave the story room to breathe. And the ending did read realistically; I need to read the next two. show less

In 1997, Canadian author Deborah Ellis traveled to Pakistan, where she worked in a camp set up for Afghani refugees, interviewing the women she met, and learning about their experiences under the oppressive Taliban regime. The stories she heard on that trip form the basis for her Breadwinner Trilogy, an acclaimed series of children's novels devoted to the experiences of women and girls in Afghanistan. The first of these, The Breadwinner, was published just a few months before the events of show more September 11, 2001, and takes place (naturally) before the fall of the Taliban.

The story of Parvana, a young girl who must disguise herself as a boy in order to earn a living for her fatherless family, The Breadwinner offers a heartbreaking portrait of a society dominated by religious zealots, in which the most basic of human rights - from education and employment, to the simple ability to leave the house - is denied to women and girls. Film-goers might recognize the similarity between Ellis' work and the movie Osama, which also features a young Afghani girl disguised as a boy, and which was released in 2004. Thankfully, the book does not end quite as grimly as the movie, although there is a horrifying sequence of events in which Parvana and her friend Shauzia find themselves digging up bones in the local graveyard, hoping to sell them and earn some money for food... show less

One minute, Clare is a middle school student in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but the next, she is in Bethlehem—“the real one”—and she’s a cat.

Thus begins Ellis’ thought-provoking and extremely accessible exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of a reflective stray cat (with a wry sense of humor) who finds refuge in a one-room house south of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Two Israeli soldiers, one ignorant and the other wiser and more compassionate, have show more commandeered it as a surveillance post, but the cat soon realizes there’s a small Palestinian boy hiding beneath the floorboards and having trouble breathing…and where are his parents? Through suspenseful and compelling prose, the author presents the situation with evenhandedness and emphasizes the importance of context; she trusts that young readers can understand a great deal. Even so, the manner in which this story is told skews young, making the treatment of at least one horrific act of violence feel a little superficial. In some ways, the skillfully integrated mirror narrative, that of Clare the girl approximately a year earlier, is more nuanced. Usually an A student and a master at flying under her teachers’ radars while performing small (and large) acts of meanness, when she encounters “Ms. Zero” and accrues 75 detentions (served by copying out the inspirational poem “Desiderata”), everything changes.

Quietly moving, full of surprises and, with Clare’s colloquial and spirited voice, highly readable. (Fiction. 10-13)

-Kirkus Review show less