Arn does what he must to survive-and, wherever possible, to protect a small pocket of children and adults around him. Arn doesn't understand what the Khmer Rouge stands for he only knows that over the next several years he and the other children shrink away on a handful of rice a day, while the corpses of adults pile ever higher in the mango grove. McCormick's version begins when the Khmer Rouge marches into 11-year-old Arn's Cambodian neighborhood and forces everyone into the country. McCormick, known for issue-oriented realism, offers a fictionalized retelling of Chorn-Pond's youth for older readers.

The childhood of Arn Chorn-Pond has been captured for young readers before, in Michelle Lord and Shino Arihara's picture book, A Song for Cambodia (2008). Simple but interesting, and certainly timely.Ī harrowing tale of survival in the Killing Fields. Non-Muslim readers may benefit from the story as a sympathetic inside introduction to an often-maligned culture. She keeps her prose simple enough for the middle-school crowd, but the suspenseful story easily can interest older teens. She depicts Islam as the solution to all ills faced by the twins. Robert clearly intends her story for Muslim teens and just as clearly encourages them to follow Islam, although she does not appear to be proselytizing to non-Muslims. The holy month of Ramadan increases the pressures on the two teens. Meanwhile, Faraz can’t summon the courage to break away from a drug dealer’s gang, endangering both himself and his sister. Against her mother’s wishes, Farhana decides to wear the hijab and reluctantly gives up a forbidden romance with a handsome boy. Both find themselves drawn to Islam, especially due to the influence of their religious aunt, who keeps herself fully covered. A pair of Pakistani twins, a boy and a girl, struggles to grow up in England while trying to follow Islam.īeautiful, smart 16-year-old Farhana and her artistic and insecure twin brother Faraz both have to confront the usual tensions between first-generation children and their immigrant parents and also cope with living in a more liberal society than their strict culture demands.

Ramadan Moon by Na'ima B. Robert