Summer 1990

by Firyal Alshalabi

Overview

On August 2nd, Danah is ready to embark on the most fantastic vacation of her life--a visit to Disney World, when Iraq invades her country Kuwait. Overnight her status changes from a spoiled wealthy girl to a homeless refugee. Stranded in New York with her uncle, Danah loses contact with her family in Kuwait. Would she ever see them again? Could she ever say, "I'm sorry" to her loving parents? Too anxious to wait for an international resolution to free her country, Danah stealthily returns to Kuwait and witnesses the horrors of war and destruction.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148571223
Publisher:	Sam Dreksler
Publication date:	01/01/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	660 KB

About the Author

Firyal Alshalabi is the author of several children's books, short stories and other YA fiction published in the U.S. and Kuwait. She earned her doctorate degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and taught at Kuwait University for eight years.

Editorial Reviews

Based on eyewitness accounts of the Gulf War, Summer 1990 has the unique quality of being the only young adult novel to be framed against the background of those turbulent times. Danah is a 13 year old girl who was hoping to visit Disney World, but when war breaks out she decides to sneak back into her ravaged land and learns about family, life and country. Seamlessly threaded throughout is general information describing Arab and Islamic culture in general. Highly recommended.

Children's Bookwatch - James Cox

Danah acts like a typical, spoiled teenager, spending a boring summer while her family is preoccupied with her older sister's wedding. However, the story is unparalleled because Danah is a Kuwaiti and the summer is the summer before the Gulf War. The author...does a great job of telling an exciting story through the eyes of Danah. The reaction of the teenager and her family to the humiliation and atrocities of war is remarkable. The author presents the Arabic culture in an illuminating style.

KLIATT - Sherri Forgash Ginsberg