Customer Reviews

Adem's Cross (Laurel Leaf Books)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Believe me,this book is so beautifully written.As a Kosovar I've found it amazing how Alice could make such a great story which in fact most of it or perhaps all of it is true because these sort of things hapenned very often in Kosova. I would highly recommend this book to all of you - no matter what age you are...Well done Alice and Keep Writing as your books will always have a spare place on my library...The best of luck

This is very good book... I wish she writes for adults... I prefer it to any kid in the world....

The author has traveled to Kosova/Kosovo, both before and after the NATO airstrikes there, and is currently active in attempts to release Kosovar Albanian prisoners held by the government in Belgrade. In Adem's Cross, the author attempts to depict rural life in Kosova/Kosovo during Serb rule, from the perspective of a Kosovar Albanian teenager, Adem(Adam). The humanity of individual Serbs and Roma(Gypsies), the ineffectiveness of several policies of the Democratic League of Kosova(LDK), the depictions of the city of Prizren and the nearby border with Albania, the views of Kosovar Albanians toward the then raging war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the prediction of future intervention over Kosova/Kosovo by the United States, make this book unique, in that it was published before the open emergence of organized armed resistance in Kosova/Kosovo, let alone the start of involvement by NATO.

In the story Adams cross there is a young boy named Adam. He is about 12 years old .he lives with his family in an old house. His family is discriminated because of there religion. He has a sister named Fatmaria. She is a little older the Adam. She goes to school and other stuff just like the family. She is the only one with a car in the family and she's the only one that can drive. In the story the Serbs shoot her. Her parents were told that she was at the hospital and told that she would be out and better the next day. The next day she came home dead and had never been taken to the hospital and she acutely came home dirtier and had stuff missing from her. They had decided to give her a proper funeral out in there back yard so when people drove past it they. When they had the funeral people came from different parts of the city and some people they didn't know. Adam was made because he thought that they were celebrating her death. That is most of the characters that have a main part in the book.

Adem's Cross is a wondeful book it's easy to read and very informative. This book makes you want to reach out and help these people. It's captivating and exciting, your always on your toes and it ends very well.A+

Let's get a fundamental point straight ... the Albanians
boycotted the state education system ... under Yugoslavia ,
descrimination was not allowed in any form . The kosovo Albanians ,
intent on creating an ethnically pure region and on joining
Albania proper , intentionally refused to attend regular
education institutions because they wanted to learn Albanian
history and the Albanian language . That was their idea . Nobody prevented them from attending classes in regular schools . This is a 100% documented fact .

This was Yugoslavia . How would you like it , in America or Canada , if every minority group said 'no , we shouldn't have to learn English in school because in this neighborhood there are more of us so we must learn so and so language ' .

Let's also not forget that prior to WW1 serbs were the majority
in kosovo . What happened to them ? Systematic intimidation and
persecution forced them to leave so that today there are almost
none left . In fact after the NATO bombing virtually no serb is
left and the majority of medieval churches have been destroyed .
In addition , gypsies and roma and turks have been hard hit because
these people have been traditionally allied to the serbs in kosovo ... throughout the 50s,60s,70s,80s serbs,gypsies etc. were harrassed and persecuted . The end result today is that the racist goal of Albanians has been almost fully realised .

Everybody likes the black and white story but this is not the case here . This was a resistance movement led my criminals and drug smugglers ... look it up , this is a well known fact . It is a well known fact that drug smuggling and prostitution is alive and well in kosovo right now . It can't be the big bad serbs now can it ? And where are the 100,000 dead people in the soccer stadium and the 10,000 dead in mass graves and the 1000 buried in a mine shaft . All proved to be a pure fiction like this book .

Why doesn't the author pick on some other country instead of Serbia ? Serbia has enough problems ... over 1 million refugees are in Serbia ... why doesn't the author go and interview those people and find out what their story is ? Because the author wants to write a 'sad story' and a 'popular' story and the 'popular' conception is that the serbs are wrong , delusional etc. and just plain evil .

Now I am going to get a lot of 'unhelpful review' hits ... and we all know why ... because I tell it like it is . Instead of this pure fiction read a real history book ' Balkans' by misha glenny for 100% unbiased approach .

A fictional account of the contemporary reality of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavian Republic territory of Kossovo, told through the eyes of a young child, this is a saga that adults as well as young readers will find shocking and all the more so as the fictional events are echoed in our daily newspapers. A must read,which I don't quite understand is only located in the young adult sections of most libraries.

This book was really informative but it was also very boring. I like the fact that some one out there had the guts to go to Kosovo and interview people when her life was on the line, but the book was kind of depperessing because Adem lost his sister and with everything that goes on in the schools, it could deffinatly use a little flowers and sunshine. We had to read this book for school and some of the book almost made me cry. I know that what is going on there is not very good, but not one thing really good ever happens to Adem. If there is a sequil, lets hope that Adem, or some one for that matter, ends up having a happy life and mabey even running off and getting married and having kids and never ever has a hard time with wars, soldiers, or the mean serbs that made their life misserable! Next time try to make your book a little more happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!