When the Moon Is Low, Nadia Hashimi

A beautifully-told story of Fereiba, an intelligent girl and young woman growing up in pre-Taliban Afghanistan. Her poetry-loving spirit is trapped in the confines of her step-mother's traditional demands on and expectations for her, but the men in her life: her often passive father who manages to rouse himself to insist on her right to start school as a young teen, her wise grandfather, and later her husband, encourage her to pursue her studies and work. The rise of the Taliban puts an end to her intellectual and working life, and the longer second part of the book is a refugee story, alternating between Fereiba's first-person narration and the third-person story of her teenaged son, Saleem. Aspirations for a safe place to call home, live as a family, and nurture their spirits and identities drive these characters, but the novel is neither sentimental nor predictable. What I've read in the news leads me to think the nomadic, always running from and to something, refugee experience as Hashimi narrates it is realistic. We are allowed into the mind and heart of a doubting, fearful, and courageous mother and into the journey of a boy from whom way too much is demanded. I loved this book and what it revealed to me and wish more American politicians would let stories like this inform their stances on refugees.