"In this fictionalized autobiography of his mother, Kherdian tells of a little girl's joy in the food and family life in her close Turkish Armenian community, then the horrors and suffering that began when thousands of Armenians are rounded up and marched toward the desert where they were sure to die. A cholera epidemic took Veran's sisters and brothers en route; her mother gave up life after the death of the sons whom she had favored; her father was killed shortly afterward; and Veran spent her growing-up years with a succession of kind and unkind aunts, in an orphanage, and in hospitals after a Greek attack on her Turkish city blew off a chunk of her leg. Veran's early dreams of getting back to her grandmother were replaced by dreams of America, and as the book ends she is 15 and on her way--via a family-arranged marriage to the author's father, whom she has not yet seen. Kherdian well captures the voice of a basically optimistic and very likable young girl, and whether the scene is a garden picnic or mass death and panic at the harbor where everyone is fleeing the Turks, it is seen through her eyes and reported as if from vivid memory." www.kirkusreviews.com

00008819

The story of the author's mother as a young girl and her journey through Turkey as an Armenian refugee, and finally to America.
The pacing is a bit uneven, but the story is an important one, I think, and so worth the read. ( )

On the homefront, I'm schooling my youngest child in 11th grade. We decided that we'd read some books together--who says you can't curl up on the couch and read in high school? Lillian and I finished The Road From Home, a Newbery Award Winner about the Armenian Holocaust in Turkey. We're studying the 20th Century, and she'd never heard about the Armenian Holocaust.

This is the memoir of Veron, a young girl growing up in Turkey before World War I with her family. As the war approached, the Turks rounded up the Armenians and marched them into the desert. This is mostly from the Armenian viewpoint, but it does bring out the fact that the Armenians were the political enemies of the Turks and Germans during the war. If your child has learned about the Trail of Tears, then they should be able to handle this book. It is geared to a middle school/high school audience. There is tragedy, but she survives. ( )

Kherdian tells the story of his Armenian mother who was a child in Turkey during the Armenian genocide years. Although most of her family died during this time, she survived and ultimately came to the USA as a mail order bride for an Armenian immigrant. I am impressed that the author can tell the Armenian story from a child's perspective, and appropriate for a young audience. That is, although the tragedy is explained enough to convey its seriousness, Kherdian doesn't give more information than is necessary for a young audience. The majority of the story is about Veron's journey, not the atrocities that she sees. There are a number of poignant scenes, and a few isolated comments about rape without explanation, but this is a book I would not hesitate to give to junior high or high school students. Kherdian also manages to convey the political tension during WWI in his introduction and throughout the story. Young students may find themselves getting lost with difficult names, and keeping characters straight, but this is a good book and a good story and worth reading. (There is an excellent sequel as well.)