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A Girl Made of Dust
A Girl Made of Dust is a sophisticated exploration of one family’s private battle to survive in the midst of civil war.
In her peaceful town outside Beirut, Ruba is slowly awakening to the shifting contours within her household: hardly speaking and refusing to work, her father has inexplicably withdrawn from his family; her once-youthful mother looks so sad that Ruba imagin...more
In her peaceful town outside Beirut, Ruba is slowly awakening to the shifting contours within her household: hardly speaking and refusing to work, her father has inexplicably withdrawn from his family; her once-youthful mother looks so sad that Ruba imagin...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
July 13th 2010
by Grove Press
(first published January 1st 2009)
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The problems with child narrators is that they need to be authentic, because the reader wants to believe the story is told by an eight year old but at the same time the reader doesn't want to feel that the book was actually written by an eight year old. Here lies the catch-22, the book needs to be told by an eight year old but written by an adult.
Many authors resort to writing simple sentences and just dumbing down everything but that's not the way, of course. Nathalie Abi-Ezzi didn't fall into...more
Many authors resort to writing simple sentences and just dumbing down everything but that's not the way, of course. Nathalie Abi-Ezzi didn't fall into...more
This is a beautifully written novel that is, I think, suitable for both children and adults. The author is able to show the horrors of war without compromising the authenticity of the child's narrative voice -- and that's a very delicate balancing act. She was also able to let the reader know what was going on without being overly didactic -- I know NOTHING about Israel's invasion of Lebanon, but I could get just enough from this book to be able to understand the story, and it made me curious to...more
Kinga:
civil war in Lebanon
The problems with child narrators is that they need to be authentic, because the reader wants to believe the story is told by an eight year old but at the same time the reader doesn't want to feel that the book was actually written by an eight year old. Here lies the catch-22, the book needs to be told by an eight year old but written by an adult.
Many authors resort to writing simple sentences and just dumbing down everything but that's not the way, of course. Nathalie...more
civil war in Lebanon
The problems with child narrators is that they need to be authentic, because the reader wants to believe the story is told by an eight year old but at the same time the reader doesn't want to feel that the book was actually written by an eight year old. Here lies the catch-22, the book needs to be told by an eight year old but written by an adult.
Many authors resort to writing simple sentences and just dumbing down everything but that's not the way, of course. Nathalie...more
"A Girl Made of Dust" starts with a deceptively slow pace. After all, it is narrated by the eight year old girl Ruba. Its power accumulates deliberately and relentlessly. The novel takes place during the early eighties outside Beirut. The slow beginning colors in the portrait of a family already in crisis over the nervous breakdown of the father whose shop feeds it. Rufa's family is Christian but not biased against Muslims; one of Ruba's friends in a Muslim boy. As the violence intensifies, the...more
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Nathalie writes as an 8 year old living her live in a town near Beruit. She sees the war and the terror as an 8 year old would not understanding why her friends are having to leave or why her people turn against another. And ponders on the strange way her father behaves -the family know, but won't tell her. She sees her older brother slowly getting sucked into the dark world that surrounds them. The book ends as the shelling gets nearer and nearer to their home and they all huddle together in fe...more
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some people are calling this book "a coming of age story," but i'm calling it a page-turner. the *only* thing that ever took me out of the story was the occasional heavy handed and unrealistic dialogue between the eight year old narrator and her ten year old brother. otherwise, the book is great all around. two unexpected delights in this book, entwined but distinct, are the narrator's imagination and the author's descriptions of the surrounding geography and flora & fauna.
while set in a chr...more
while set in a chr...more
A fictional story of the Israeli and Palestinian invasions into Lebanon, told from the point of view of an eight-year-old Christian girl, Ruba. The story is told completely from her observations of what is happening to her family and her village. Her father has changed, never works, just sits in his chair. Her uncle has a mysterious job in Beirut. Her friend Karim is Muslim, and why would that matter? Her mother is voicelessly unhappy with the situation. Her grandmother is the rock of the family...more
This story takes place in Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion where we see the war through the eyes of an eight-year-old girl and are invited into her innocence. It is beautifully told: "[t:]he hot sky had bleached itself white and cicadas hummed back and forth, back and forth, as if they were sawing the trees. Teta had said once that each time they stopped a person had died, but they didn't stop often.." By the end of the book, as the family hudles in their home, their once peaceful Christ...more
A child narrator is a hard act to pull off, but it works very well here. Beautiful, small book about childhood, war, and family. It's very gentle given what's going on (the Israeli invasion of Lebanon), and Abi-Ezzi's voice is wonderful. It made me think a little of the film The Spirit of the Beehive, another version of a child surrounded by events she doesn't quite understand. And I thought the resolution, which really explored the implications of the title, worked perfectly.
I bought this more...more
I bought this more...more
An impressive debut novel. I had some difficulty getting into this, but once I was in Ruba's world I did not want to leave. Abi-Ezzi does an excellent job of revelaing the stories of the other characters in bits and pieces through her young narrator. Ruba's relationships with the other characters reveal a great deal on how children percieve the world and events around them.
I often enjoy having a child narrator, but the challenges of trying to figure out what was really happening with the adults...more
I often enjoy having a child narrator, but the challenges of trying to figure out what was really happening with the adults...more
Ruba, an eight-year-old Lebanese Maronite Christian girl is of an age where she is becoming more aware of family tensions, as well as being concerned with real and imaginary childhood issues such as the taunting of her Muslim friend, Karim at school, and her belief that a neighbor woman is a witch who must have put a curse on her depressed father to cause his nearly immobilized condition.
Her older brother, Naji is spending less and less time playing with her as he falls in with some older boys w...more
Her older brother, Naji is spending less and less time playing with her as he falls in with some older boys w...more
This was an easy read about the hardships of life in a war torn country. It was refreshing to see the life of this family thru the eyes of Ruba, who is 8, as she grapples with tensions within her family and religious bigotry in her country. Now if I can just get my daughter to put down her wonderful fantasy books by Tamora Pierce and Rick Riordan for a bit, she can take a look thru Ruba's eyes too!
It took me half the book to get used to the narration. First person from a 7-year-old, but it never really sounded like a 7-year-old, did it? In any case, getting past that, the childlike experience of random incomprehensible violence actually worked out to be heartbreaking, all the way to the rather abrupt ending.
I enjoyed this book. It started slow for me, but when it picked up it got very good. My big problem with this was that Ruba, the narrator was at times very precocious (to the point of not being realistic) but at other times did not give the reader enough history to really follow the events happening around her.
Jul 15, 2010
Melle
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Christian, Jewish, and Muslim extremists
A haunting, emotional story about a young Lebanese Christian girl's perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religious extremism, and the divisions and connections between family, neighbors, human beings, and the past, present, and future.
I've recently come across this novel! It's an amazing literary work -- moving, haunting and though-provoking! The narrator is an eleven-year-old girl, whose perspective gives a more immediate feel to the civil war experience in Lebanon. A story that lets a shiver run down your spine.
The writing was beautiful, but I just couldn't get into it. The story moved along very slowly, and the reveal of the mystery surrounding Ruba's father's depression was very anti-climactic. There was a lot of potential with this premise, but I didn't feel that the book lived up to it.
The 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut is told through the eyes of an 8 yr. old Christian girl. This story brought to light the devastation of war and the impact upon the communities of people who live in the war zone.
I really wanted to like this book. The plot itself was quite good, bringing together an honest 8 year old protagonist's view of the invasion of Lebanon and the unveiling of her family's history, but something about the writing didn't engage me. Oh, well.
The book Girl Made Of Dust is a touching and inspiring book, set in the 1980's during the Lebanese war. This book made me feel as if I were a part of it. Very touching. 5/5.
this story is set in a christian village during the 1982 Israeli invasion. It is narrated by a 8 year old girl.It is about a family struggling with the events of war.
This book had great language and an interesting premise, but I felt it only touched the surface of what it could have about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. I felt the narrator understood little of what was going on and as a reader I then felt I understood little.
I enjoyed this read because of the hope in spite of the reality of war. Placed during the 1982 War in a small village outside of Beirut, the main character is an 8 year old girl, and her perspective is refreshingly honest as she views the world around her - her family, her village, and the people who cross her path. Heart-tugging, but not a devestating kind of read; more hopeful and promising despite loss and pain.
Apr 19, 2013
Shymaa
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone whose country is on the brink of civil war
Recommended to Shymaa by:
read it for class
Shelves:
lebanese-civil-war,
we-are-next
I cried once, and vomited twice.
What I really liked about this book? It isn't didactic.
What I really liked about this book? It isn't didactic.
membaca buku ini mengingatkan saya pada to kill a mockingbird. sebuah cerita yg diambil dari sudut pandang anak kecil. cukup suka dengan karakter Ruba di sini. Sayangnya karena terputus-putus jdnya kurang bisa mendalami isi novel tersebut.
I really liked the story but was disappointed that there wasn't a clear resolution at the end.
A bit disappointed in the writing style....I thought it would have been better.
I just didn't want to continue reading this book, maybe it was the timing. I wanted to enjoy it but did not find myself drawn in by the main character or the author's style.
I had to really force myself to read this, it was so slow.
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“Every silence says something: the silence between words, between notes in music and between people.”
—
6 people liked it
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