"Five-year-old Pari accompanies her mother on her library bus rounds for the first time, stopping at a village and a refugee camp so that girls there can exchange books and have a lesson in English. Talking with her mother as they drive, Pari learns that she is lucky that she can attend school the next year. Pari's mother had to learn in secret when it was forbidden to teach girls to read, and the young women the bus visits weekly have no other access...

A young boy, Yamo, lives in the Afghan village of Paghman. The peaceful village is surrounded by the bounty of nature. Fruit trees burst into bloom in the spring, and in the summer, Yamo's whole family joins in harvesting apricots, plums, and cherries--breaking into song as they pick. This year, for the first time, Yamo goes to the market in town to sell their harvest with his father. He is filling in for his older brother, who is off fighting in...

As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.

"Afghan American Mafi's sophomore year gets complicated as family secrets are exposed, putting her family back in Afghanistan in danger"--

Only eighteen when she is sent to Afghanistan, British army medic Elinor Nielson is continually at odds with her hardnosed bunkmate, Heidi Larson, but connects with a mysterious Afghan girl and local children, as well as an American lieutenant.

When Obayda's father loses one of his legs in a bomb explosion, the family is forced to relocate from Kabul to a small village, where Obayda's aunt decides to invite good luck by dressing Obayda up as a boy, a bacha posh.

Born deformed, Anibus is considered cursed and is left in the desert to die, but after being rescued and raised in secret, she leads a nomadic life, finding acceptance with a colony of artists which includes Kamal al-Din Bihzad, the most famous master of Persian painting.