Dawn and Dusk

Mead, Alice. 2007. Dawn and Dusk.

There really aren't that many children's books out there dealing with the subject matter of Dawn and Dusk. Set relatively close to the border of Iran/Iraq in the 1980s, Dawn and Dusk is the story of a Kurdish community, a Kurdish family, torn apart by war. Both the Iranian and Iraqi armies are hostile to the Kurds. So really during the war, no one knew who to support. They just had war on both sides and were fighting for survival. Our narrator is a young teen boy named Azad. Azad's parents are divorced. His mom lives with his uncle. He loves to visit her whenever he can. His father, well, his relationship with his father is difficult. His father is absent even when he's physically present. The book is about the war, about his family, about living life facing the threat of death.

It's hard to say that you "enjoyed" a book about war and chemical warfare and the fight to survive another day. . . but I thought it was well-written. Azad's friends and family are well-developed and the loss and confusion feels authentic.