FlumeAward – IraqiGirl Discussion page for IragiGirl.
This book collects the blog posts of a high school age girl living in Masul Iraq. Her parents lived in the US and helped her write her blog in English so that she could communicate to the outside world what life was like for a teenage girl in Iraq. Since english is her second language, the blog is fairly simple and straightforward. It tells of everyday life, school, holidays, family, chores, but also tells of car bombs, tanks, curfews, snipers lack of electricity and clean water, which are also part of everyday life in Iraq. She has a different view of the American occupation, very negative but not inflammatory. She is educated and comes from an educated family and is open minded enough to say that she doesn’t hate every American for what the soldiers are doing but she has seen very negative things happen, innocents being shot by soldiers or caught in the crossfire. She talks about how, during Saddam’s time she hated Saddam because of the lack of freedom but now she has a much more positive view of him because life was so much better during his time for regular Iraquis because there was no violence in the streets, bombs, there was plenty of clean water, regular electricity etc.
During the time of her blog she got many responses, some very negative and hateful, some sympathetic and supportive. Only a few of the responses are collected in the book. The book has a timeline at the end of some of the important events that effected IraquiGirl and the area where she lives.
Since this is the only non-fiction book on the list and it give insight into the war from the other side, I think we should include it on the list.
Amy Friedman Rodgers Memorial Library