Customer Reviews

Under the Persimmon Tree

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Under the Persimmon Tree is a look at life in Afghanistan/Pakistan in the months immediately following September 11, 2001 through the eyes of two women. One is Najmah, a young Afghan girl left alone with her pregnant mother when her father and brother are conscripted by the Taliban. Her mother and the baby are killed during an air raid over their village a short time later. Now Najmah must travel to Peshwar to find her father and brother, and save their land.
The other is Nusrat, an American teacher, convert of Islam, who came to Pakistan when her Afghan husband Faiz decided to return to his home to help those suffering because of the war. Their stories converge when Najmah is brought to Nusrat's home in Peshwar, where she teaches a school for refugee children. Together they seek answers about their families, and their future.
This is a heartbreaking story, with a solid core of hope and strength. There is no happy ending, yet the future does not seem bleak. This timely and thought-provoking book is sure to be a contender for this year's Newbery Medal.

This story unfolds through two perspectives: a young girl in Afghanistan and an American woman living in Pakistan, in the months immediately following 9/11. Their seemingly contradictory lifestyles share surprising similarities in their experiences, suffering and hopes, as the story draws these two together.

The narrative weaves a delicate path, sensitive amidst the hardship and loss of the period, and provides a convincing and compelling explanation for each character's motives.

The story climaxes with an ending that is poignantly true to its characters, despite the reader's wishes, yet is satisfying in its own brutal realism.

Surely a Newbery contender!

The year is 2001. Afghanistan is in the middle of a war between the Taliban and the US- backed Northern Alliance. The story follows two extraordinary people: Najmah and Nusrat. Najmah, whose name means "star," has lost almost all of her family to the fighting. Her only remaining relative is an uncle, whose sole aim is to steal the land that her father wanted her so much to protect. Najmah has no choice, but to accompany a family of travelers, as they are the only people, it seems, that care about her. The other main character is a woman by the name of Nusrat, an American living in Peshawar, Pakistan. Her school for refugee children under her Persimmon Tree keeps her mind away from her husband, who is working in northern Afghanistan as a doctor. Through a perilous journey, Najmah comes to live with Nusrat, and their lives entwine, as Najmah studies under the persimmon tree with other children who have seen more hardship in their young lives than Nusrat has seen in her entire lifetime.

This book was an amazing testament to those who must give up their lifestyle and possessions to warfare and hardship. "Under the Persimmon Tree" gives a face to all those who surrender all individuality to the western media, and are just masses of people in their eyes. I could not put the book down. I received the book on a Friday evening, and was done by Saturday morning. The way Suzanne Fisher Staples writes is both knowledgeable and empathetic. Her firsthand experience of the change of Afghanistan from a cultural center to a barren wasteland translates very clearly into the amazing and true-to-life storyline. Ms. Staples lived in Afghanistan from the time before the Soviet Invasion that changed the country forever to the time of the Taliban takeover. The ending leaves readers to wonder, and yet a sense of closure is within a close grasp. Under the Persimmon Tree is an essential to anyone with family members fighting in Afghanistan, who follow events there, or just want to learn about the war that seems to have disappeared out of our media spotlight.

Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews
(...)
Preteen and young adult book reviews and recommendations

" 'So,' she says, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the flat of her hand, a gesture that seems so motherly that her throat closes. 'Do you need a place to stay?' The boy nods his head slowly.
"Nusrat reaches into a bowl on the table that stands in front of the window beside their chairs and picks up a bright orange persimmon that sits on top of a pyramid of ripe fruit. She takes the boy's hand and turns it palm up to place the fruit in it. She runs her finger over the calluses at the base of his fingers and below the center knuckles and looks up into his eyes, which watch her intently as she places the fruit in the cup of his palm and curls his fingers up over it.
" 'Well,' says Nusrat. 'Don't worry.' "

If you want some basic information about a foreign country, one place you can find it online is in the Central Intelligence Agency's "The World Factbook." In looking up Afghanistan in the CIA's "The World Factbook" I learned that as of 10 February, 2005 (which was when their facts were last updated), the population of Afghanistan was around 28 and a half million people. I also learned that the life expectancy at birth in Afghanistan as of 10 February, 2005 is 42 and a half years. (This compares to California with a population of 35 million and a life expectancy at birth of 79 and a half years.)

So, if I lived in Afghanistan, the odds are that I'd currently be dead for the past 7 and a half years.

Earlier this year I wrote about PINNED, a terrific story about two high school wrestlers from two different towns in New Jersey (where the life expectancy at birth is two years less than in California). As I explained in my write-up of PINNED, "In alternating chapters we get to know about complications in the lives, the loves, and the families, as well as the fears of these two young men who are clearly destined to meet at the season finale."

Well, in Suzanne Fisher Staple's latest book UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE, there are also a pair of main characters--young women who are clearly destined to meet up--and we similarly "get to know about complications in the lives, the loves, and the families, as well as the fears" of these two characters.

And since these are young females in post-9/11 Afghanistan--one there by birth, the other by choice--the complications and fears we're talking about are off the charts as compared to the average character in New Jersey, California, or just about anywhere else in the world.

"I know you're out there somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere
I know you're out there somewhere
Somewhere you can hear my voice
I know I'll find you somehow
Somehow, somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow
And somehow I'll return again to you."
--The Moody Blues

To see your father and brother conscripted at gunpoint into the Taliban, your opium poppy-growing uncle scheming to take away your family's land, and then watch your mother and newborn baby brother get blown up in a bombing by your so-called "liberators," seems like more than enough "complications" for three or four stories put together. But for Najmah (whose name means "Star"), a tweener from a shepherding family from Kunduz Province in Afghanistan, this is just the beginning of her story.

Then there is Nusrat. Nusrat was originally named Elaine. She grew up in Upstate New York. Years after the only person in the whole world who really knew her died, her sister Margaret, Elaine had immersed herself in a teaching job and a second job at an animal shelter. But she still couldn't get past the pain of Margaret's inexplicable death until she fell in love with her fellow Manhattan apartment dweller, Faiz, a handsome young doctor from Afghanistan who said her name should be Nusrat (which means "Help"). .

Now Faiz is off trying to save lives in a clinic deep in the war zone of Afghanistan, and Nusrat is just over the border in Pakistan where she spends her days teaching writing and 'rithmetic to refugee kids.

Because of the chaos of war, neither young woman has any idea whether their loved ones are dead or alive.

UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE is an uncompromising look into the lives and hearts of these two young female characters from the other side of the world. As she did many years ago in writing the Newbery Honor SHABANU, Suzanne Fisher Staples calls upon her experiences as a UPI reporter in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring readers as close to that world as they're likely to get in their (relatively long American) lifetimes.

I felt that the story was overall really well done and the ideas were great. However I really wish that the author could have gone into more detail about what happened to the characters in the end. I also wish that the reader could hear more about what was happening to Nur and
Baba-jan. I felt like someparts were to long and some too short and I didn't feel very connected to the character. I think that the story has a lot of power but the way the story is described does not.

Imagine being a girl with no money and worried that your house may be bombed at any second. Or a teacher that doesn't even know if your husband is dead or alive. That's Najmah and Nusrat, the main characters, in this fantastic story of the Afghans perspective on 9-11-01, Under the Persimmon Tree, by Suzanne Fisher Staples.
Najmah, a helpless girl, is living in Golestan Village in Northern Afghanistan. Najmah's father and brother are taken away by the Taliban. As her father was being dragged away he said to them,
"Do not leave this farm. I will be back soon enough."
Meanwhile Nusrat, a Muslim woman, who has a school, teaching refugee children about mathematics and the stars. She is afraid that her husband who is in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan is dead. He is in the middle of the war of 9-11-01 running a clinic to help wounded soldiers. Both women find themselves alone looking up in the stars for answers.
The book has two different stories going on at the same time. Throughout the book the two stories flip back and forth every chapter. I liked the book overall but Najmah's story was better to me. In my opinion she was more adventurous and left me with questions throughout the book. I would rate this book a three out of five stars. I would recommend this book to people who like history and that want to study the other side of the 9-11-01 tragedy.

This is the story of a young girl,Najmah, whose father and brother are taken by the Taliban and forced to fight. After further tragedy she is helped by the son of a neighbor who takes her with his family to a refugee camp on the Pakistani/Afghan border. Parallel, the story of a young American woman, Nusrat, who came to Pakistan with her Afghan husband so that he could open medical clinics across the border to help his people. As the story opens, that husband is missing. Eventually the two females' paths cross.

This was just okay. It seemed very rushed, as if the author was being held to a strict page limit. May of the characters were undeveloped and their actions were therefore erratic. The lack of development made it hard to understand or to rationalize why the characters did what they did.

This book was a stimulating story about two women living in the Middle East.

First, there is Najmah. Najmah is a young Afghan girl who lives with her pregnant mother, father, and older brother. Early on in the book, Najmah's brother and father are extracted by the Taliban. Najmah is then forced to take care of the land and her mother.
Her mother and Habib, her new baby brother are killed by an air raid on their village. Najmah survives and is taken in by Akhtar. Akhatar, his wife, and his two sons, and the newest addition, Najmah, attempt to travel to Peshwar, where they hope to become safe.
Najmah is faced with important decisions as she longs to search for her brother and father. Her journey eventually leads to Preshwar where she searches for her loved ones.

Nusrat is a American girl who converts to Islam. After marrying her husband, Faiz, they soon move to Afghanistan. Faiz is a doctor and wishes to help with the victims in Afghanistan. After arriving in Peshwar, Faiz decides it is safer for Nusrat to stay there. Faiz then travels to his new occupation.
Nusrat has not heard from her husband in months and the fear of his death reigns over her, However, she stays strong and does not let herself think such thoughts.

The two worlds collide when Najmah reaches Peshwar. Najmah attends Nusrats school that she runs in her garden, under the persimmon tree. After being in the school for some time the two girls began to converse. Together they then try find the ones they hold dear to their heart.

This story is one that will touch your life forever. It helps you to see the happiness in your life and embrace what you have. This book was a exquisite picture into a life full of fear and uncertainty. It is a book I would recommend.

The Afghan war of 2001 was a vivid reminder of the brutality, anger and hatred that the division of a country can produce. Under the Persimmon Tree brings this experience to life through the perspective of Najmah, an Afghan girl, and Elaine, an American woman living in Pakistan.

Najmah lives with her father, mother and older brother in a remote village. They have little in worldly possessions, but there is a deep bond between them. When the fearful, abusive and controlling Taliban appear, food is always seized with no thought for the remaining villagers. This time is even worse for Najmah's family. Her father and older brother are taken captive. Only Najmah and her mother remain, left to fend for themselves.

After the bombs come, Najmah is left hungry, alone and numb, but lucky to be alive. She is helped by other villagers. They change her appearance and she travels with them to a refugee camp many perilous miles away.

Elaine, her Islamic name Nusrat, is married to a fine doctor. They have come to the country so he can help his people. He is far away in dangerous territory treating those in desperate need. Nusrat was a teacher in the United States and continues to find ways to teach some of the refugee children from the compound. With no word from her husband, Nusrat longs to know of his welfare.

In time, providence brings Najmah and Nusrat together. Their friendship grows and a bond of trust is developed. But what does the future hold in this vastly devastated and war-torn country?

The overall writing was very descriptive, dramatic and direct. However, to get the clearest picture, familiarize yourself with the glossary.

I found Under the Persimmon Tree to be an excellent cultural read. It will open your eyes to a way of life that must be experienced to understand.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

i thought that the book was a fair read. it wouldn't be worthwhile to me to read it again and it hasn't been added to the list of books i would recommend, but to the author's credit, it was well written. i feel the ending left something to be desired, and it could have used more of what was going on in the character's surroundings; it became monotonous after awhile.