Have students make a text-to-self connection with The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis! They will identify their favorite quote or scene and describe what it means to them.
Öykü Penceresi Metni
Favorite Quote / Scene from The Breadwinner
The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis written in 2000 about 11-year old Parvana growing up under the oppressive Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan in the late 1990s. The Taliban has imposed strict laws based on their interpretation of Islam that forbid women from leaving the house without a male attendant and forbid them from going to school.
CLIMAX / TURNING POINT
EXPOSITION & CONFLICT
11-year-old Parvana is young enough that she can go outside to help her father and fetch water, even though she is a girl. In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, girls and women are forbidden from going to school or even leaving the house without a man. Parvana goes to the market to help her father who was wounded in a bombing. Her mother, 16 year old sister Nooria, younger sister Maryam and baby brother Ali have all ben shut up in their small one room apartmnet since the Taliban takeover over a year ago.
FALLING ACTION
RISING ACTION
One day, Parvana's father is arrested inexplicably and held in prison without charges. The family is helpless without him as the women are forbidden to work or leave the house. Parvana cuts off her hair so that she can pass for a boy and in this way walk the streets freely to buy their necessities and do odd jobs to help make ends meet. She and her friend Shauzia (who also poses as a boy) even dig up bones from bombed out buildings to sell to a bone collector. Anything that will help to feed their families.
RESOLUTION
Physical / Personality Traits How does this character interact with others in the book? What challenges does this character face?
Physical / Personality Traits How does this character interact with others in the book? What challenges does this character face?
Parvana's mother arranges for sister Nooria to get married so that the family can move to Mazar al-Sharif which is not yet under Taliban control. There they think they will be free to continue their education and work. Parvana refuses to go because she fears her father will not be able to find them should he ever get out of prison. The family leaves without her but Parvana stays in the care of Mrs. Weera, a hardy ex field-hockey coach, who, even under her burqa exudes determination.
Parvana is devastated to learn one day that Mazar al-Sharif has fallen to the Taliban. She finds a woman in hiding whose entire family was killed by the invading Taliban and she had to flee for her life. Fearing that her family is killed, Parvana becomes very depressed.
Parvana's hopes are restored when her father is finally released from prison. He comes home in a weakened state but Mrs. Weera and Parvana slowly nurse him back to health. At the end of the novel, Parvana and her father set off on a journey to find her mother, sisters and baby brother.