Rosenblatt, Darcey. Lost Boys. Macmillan/Henry Holt 2017 279p. $16.99 ISBN 978-1-62779-758-0 ms/jr Historical Fiction E-BN
Expecting
a The Red Badge of Courage, the reader will be greeted by more of a The Great Escape in
this debut novel by Darcey Rosenblatt. This book has it all, and young readers
will be horrified at first, then gratified, when they complete their
reading. "Horrified" covers a
mother giving up her son to a war effort with the thought that he will be
received by God and treated as a martyr should he die in battle, and
"horrified" covers readers’
emotions as they read
of the atrocities experienced by Reza and the other 12-year-olds in a
prisoner-of-war camp in Iraq. Reza
suffers more than any child should, first with the loss of his father, then his
uncle, then his best friend Ebi. For a
large part of the book, Reza does not know if Ebi survived their first
encounter, an absolutely astounding example of history that allowed boys to
lead a battle without arms and to find themselves sacrificed to detonate the
bombs before armed soldiers could attack.
But two miracles save Reza. The first miracle is his love of music, which is with him throughout his
imprisonment. The other miracle is his
teacher, an Irishman who introduces Reza to his “tar”, AKA guitar, which becomes Reza’s salvation in more
ways than one. The relationships that
Reza builds over time help him survive the harshness of the camp. Without them he would surely perish. When Reza’s life is threatened by the evil guard, Abass, Reza knows he must
leave. In a harrowing escape, he finds a
voice telling him how to proceed in this life, a voice comprised of everything
he has learned from all the good people of this world. What emotions the reader will
experience! What sorrow he/she will feel
that there are young people in this world who do not have the freedom to grow
up due to the politics and/or religious beliefs surrounding us. Powerful and poignant, yet hopeful and
uplifting.
Summary:
When Reza’s best friend Ebi wants to enlist in the Iranian army,
Reza finds himself reluctantly pulled into a nightmare from which he cannot
return. First rejected by his own mother
who insists that he serve his country, then sent to the front to face the
enemy, he survives to become a prisoner in an Iraqi camp where horrors abound.
Iran-Iraq
War-Fiction --Martha
Squaresky
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