The book Escape From Aleppo by N.H Senzai is about a girl named Nadia who is escaping from the war in Aleppo. On the way she looses her family and has to find them. During this time she meets new people that help her on her journey.        

I give the book Escape From Aleppo, a 10 out of 10. I think this is because whenever I was reading the story I was always engaged. The reasons why I felt engaged was because the writing in the book was so colourful. For example the vocabulary that the author used, like the clatter of running feet, or, she held a sputtering candle. This word choice was very descriptive and really made the story come alive for me.

Another thing I liked about the story is the characters. I liked the characters because they were all different in their own way but at the same time they were all similar.

For instance Nadia is a tough cookie, what I mean by that is that no matter how hard things get for her she always has a positive attitude. Another character is Basel. The thing I liked about Basel was that he would always face the facts. For example he faced the fact that he knew that it was not going to get better Aleppo and moved on from that.

I hope that reading my review will make you want to read the adventurous book called Escape from Aleppo.

Reviewed by Nina (Aged 11)

Happy reading! 

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The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta by Kushanava Choudhury

The Epic City is a winding twisting rickshaw ride through the heart and soul of Calcutta. A city of 15 million dreamers and filmmakers and poets and musicians and of course by far the most important; chaiwallas, for how would the city ever fully function without their steaming hot cups of cardamom and ginger spiced milky chai? A city fuelled on endless cups of tea, street food stalls, roadside sweet shops, and neverending adda: the Bengali word for chats.

In this confusing, chaotic and cheerful love letter, Kushanava Choudhury reconnects with his roots and moves back to the city his immigrant parents long since left behind, uncovering the drowned out voices and stories that never quite make the paper. You will find yourself squeezing through hidden allies, to breathing in bustling bazaars. Each as full of life and laughter. Tram rides and lazy afternoon strides, powered on contempt bellies of fish curry and rice, will lead you to the concealed corners and crooks that make everyday Calcutta life.

The Epic City is a book that will leave you with an electric urge to travel and explore. Whether that means getting lost in a brand new city, or simply absorbing the nuances of your neighbourhood.

Reviewed by Vindhya Kathuria

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Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Stunning, lyrical, haunting. Characters that will tangle into your thoughts and mingle with your mind for days. Sing, Unburied, Sing is a searingly honest and devastating road novel, that centres around an African American family living in rural Mississippi. This story is guaranteed to make your heart speed way over the limit, and run a few redlights too while you're at it, because honestly I could not bring myself to pull the brakes and put this book down.

In this powerful tale of family, love, poverty, grief, and race, Wards chilling writing trembles with pain for the characters we wish to save and pull right off the pages straight into our arms. Jojo, a thirteen year old, learning what it means to be a man from his grandfather, and parenting his three year old sister Kayla, because if not him then who? Surely not his mother Leonie, absent and selfish and unable to put her children above her own needs. Not his father Michael, locked up in prison, and whose family are disgusted by his black girlfriend and biracial kids. The only two people Jojo can fully rely on his being his loving grandparents, Mam and Pop, everyone else, ghosts to him, sometimes there, sometimes not, always haunting.

When Leonie packs the two kids and a friend into the car, and sets off on a journey to retrieve the one thing that hasn't entirely slipped out from her hands; Michael, Jojo begins to understand the racism and hatred of the south, and comes to terms with everything his mother is, isn't and never  will be.

Profound, poetic, and an important reminder that the shadows and skeletons of slavery are still very much alive and present in twenty-first-century America.

Reviewed by Vindhya Kathuria

Happy reading! 

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Disoriental by Négar Djavadi

Stories of lives in exile - voluntary or not - are many and varied and Negar Djavadi’s Disoriental is a worthy, interesting and enjoyable addition to those written primarily by Iranian women many of whom fled their home country as young children in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution and who have now reached an age and maturity that allows for reflective consideration.

Kimia Sadr has fled Iran with her mother and sisters to join their father, an intellectual who opposed the western backed regime of the Shah, welcomed (cautiously) the promise of the new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini only to find his dreams of freedom, equality and prosperity crushed by the heavy handed despotic rule of the mullahs.

Disoriental moves back and forth between Kimia’s life as a young gay woman in France and her family’s history in Iran. The main (and most compelling part) of the book takes place in the northern Iran of her grandparents and the Tehran of her politically active parents. The book not only describes the unravelling of a country with a strong heritage, an ancient culture and a proud people. It also describes the pain of leaving a country you fought for and the challenges of fitting into a new life.

“That’s the tragedy of exile. Things, as well as people, still exist, but you have to pretend to think of them as dead.”

Highly readable, by turns heartbreaking and humorous, the book weaves and layers the history of a country with the struggles of a young woman trying to find her own identity without the aid of the scaffolding afforded by her own culture, heritage and childhood. It’s the story of a young Iranian in Europe with a loving, acute, precise and at times funny sense of the cultural differences.

“Here’s what I learned about the Dutch: each person is free to be who they are, to want what they want, to live how they choose, on the condition that it doesn’t harm the well-being of anyone else, or the general equilibrium. It’s a philosophy of life that’s the exact opposite of Persian culture, where erecting barriers, getting involved in other people’s lives, and breaking the law is as natural as breathing. But it’s also unlike the Judeo-Christian rigidity of French culture, where actions are endlessly hindered by words.”

Disoriental is perceptive and personal, a book about freedom to live, to choose and to love.

Happy reading!

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