Deborah Ellis - The Breadwinner Series Bundle

Published in Canada and the USA in 2016 by Groundwood Books
groundwoodbooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the authors rights.

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF).

ISBN 978-1-77306-052-1 (epub) ISBN 978-1-77306-053-8 (mobi)

Cover illustrations by Aurlia Fronty
Design by Kaitlyn Sykes

Copyright 2000, 2015 by Deborah Ellis
First published in the USA in 2001
Fifteenth anniversary edition with foreword and revised note published in paperback in Canada and the USA in 2015 by Groundwood Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the authors rights.

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801, Toronto, Ontario M5V 2K4
or c/o Publishers Group West
1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Ontario Arts Council.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Ellis, Deborah, author
The breadwinner / by Deborah Ellis.

First published in 2000; fifteenth anniversary re-issue with updates.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55498-765-8 (pbk.).ISBN 978-1-55498-007-9 (html).
ISBN 978-1-55498-581-4 (mobi)

I. Title.

PS8559.L5494B73 2015 jC813.54 C2014-906799-2
C2014-906800-X

Cover illustration by Aurlia Fronty
Design by Michael Solomon

To the children of war

FOREWORD

Its been thirty-six years since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Its been twenty-six years since their departure marked the start of the bloody civil war. Its been nineteen years since the capture of Kabul by the Taliban army, and fourteen years since that terrible day in September that unleashed events leading to the Talibans removal from power.

Thats an awful lot of war for a country thats barely the size of Texas.

My involvement with Afghanistan began when the news of the crimes of the Taliban hit the Toronto newspapers back in 1996. Since then, I have been trying to understand what war does to people.

War is made by people living in safety who make the decision to take risks with the lives of others whose opinions on the matter are not even solicited. War is made by those who profit from the manufacturing of weaponry. War is made by people who are too lazy to put the creative work and compassion into coming up with a solution to their problems that does not involve murder.

Ive seen the way bombs and bullets shatter human bodies and devastate families. Ive learned what happens when the destruction of infrastructure leads to bad water, food shortages and the lack of medical care. And Ive learned from refugees about how their lives have been derailed and reduced to Waiting for food, for shelter, for documents, for peace.

Through all the tales of crime and chaos, there have been heroes giants of courage who, in big ways and small, put human decency above all else.

Ive met teachers around the world who carve out little niches of safety and childhood for kids in need. Ive met librarians who remind us that human beings are capable of creating things noble and sublime. Ive met builders and farmers, health workers and home workers who go through incredible difficulties just to make the next day, the next hour, a little bit better for those around them. Ive met parents of dead children who take in children of dead parents, raising them with love and care.

And Ive met children who cast aside the hatreds of the older generation and work toward building a world of radical kindness and beauty.

In todays warfare, ninety-five percent of the casualties are civilians. This means that when we give our governments permission to go to war, we are giving them permission to kill people who are just like us who complain about the weather, love their children and wonder what to have for dinner. People who have done us no harm.

Books can help us remember what we have in common as humans.

Thats what I try to do with mine.

In this fifteenth anniversary edition of The Breadwinner , I would like to thank all the readers who have embraced Parvana and her companions, who have followed her journey with compassion as though she were a close friend. I thank all the teachers, librarians and parents who have introduced the book to the readers in their care. And I thank, most deeply, the people of Afghanistan. They deserve, like we all deserve, to live in peace forever.

Deborah Ellis
2015

ONE

I can read that letter as well as father can, whispered Parvana into the folds of her chador. Well, almost.

She didnt dare say those words out loud. The man sitting beside her father would not want to hear her voice. Nor would anyone else in the Kabul market. Parvana was there only to help her father walk to the market and back home again after work. She sat well back on the blanket, her head and most of her face covered by her chador.

She wasnt really supposed to be outside at all. The Taliban had ordered all the girls and women in Afghanistan to stay inside their homes. They even forbade girls to go to school. Parvana had had to leave her sixth grade class, and her sister Nooria was not allowed to go to her high school. Their mother had been kicked out of her job as a writer for a Kabul radio station. For more than a year now, they had all been stuck inside one room, along with five-year-old Maryam and two-year-old Ali.

Parvana did get out for a few hours most days to help her father walk. She was always glad to go outside, even though it meant sitting for hours on a blanket spread over the hard ground of the marketplace. At least it was something to do. She had even got used to holding her tongue and hiding her face.