Under+the+Persimmon+Tree

 Najmah lives with her family in a village in Northern Afghanistan. The village is called Golestan. Najmah and her family grow crops to eat, and her life is very simple. One day while she is gathering wood, the Taliban people come to her house. They are soldiers for Afghanistan, and they need more people to fight. They take all of the family's food, and also Najmah's brother and father. Najmah and her mother stays at their house to make sure that Najmah's uncle doesn't claim their land for himself. One day, Najmah is coming back from cutting grass for her animals. A bomb destroys her home, and her mother and newly born brother die. Najmah is at home by herself when her family's friends com. They are very nice to her, and dress her up as a boy so that she can travel with them. They are traveling to the border of Pakistan, where there is a refugee camp. When they reach the camp, Najmah escapes in a truck so that she can get to Peshawar to look for her brother and father.  Nusrat is an American woman living in Peshawar. She has a school in her backyard, under a Persimmon tree. She teaches refugees from the refugee camp in Peshawar. One day, a boy is brought to her school. Soon she finds out that he is really a girl dressed as a boy. The girl's name is Najmah. She lives with Nusrat and learns at her school. One day another boy is brought to the school. It is Nur, Najmah's brother. They are reunited and find out that they are orphans now, with both their mother and father killed.

This culture is nothing like our culture. Families are split, and the boys and men are taken away to fight. People are robbed by the Taliban. There are a lot of random bombings and shootings, and innocent people killed. Women are not treated very well, causing some people like Khalida and Najmah to dress as boys for their own safety. Even though the armies and soldiers are very mean, that does not stop a lot of people from being nice. Families love each other and try to stay together. People take strangers in and take care of them and feed them, like Nusrat. ~Erin

 I liked this book a lot. It was a little boring at the beginning, but when I got into it I wanted to know what would happen to the girl and her family. I would recommend this book to someone because it taught you a lot about the culture, but it didn't make you really bored because it was a great story. __Under the Persimmon Tree__ was a really good book.~Erin Bandstra