Dancing in the mosque An Afghan mother's letter to her son

Qaderi's (Silver Kabul River Girl) life has been anything but peaceful. Growing up in Hera¯t, Afghanistan, she spent long hours in the basement of her family's home, sheltering from errant gunfire during the war with the Soviet Union. After a brief peace, warring factions emerged within the country and the Taliban soon came to the forefront, shutting down schools for girls and limiting women's freedom. However, from childhood Qaderi harbored a spirit of rebellion and perseverance. Questioning the limitations on women and forming secret groups to advance her own writing and to teach refugee children, Qaderi persists. Her writing demonstrates her resilience in the face of wars, the Taliban, and, later, marriage to a man she meets the day of her wedding. Dancing in the Mosque is the story of Qaderi and the women of Afghanistan, penned as a love letter to the son that was taken from her after her husband divorced her. VERDICT A shocking, heartbreaking tale of the wars and gender inequality in Afghanistan. This personal story, centered on Qaderi's unquenchable spirit in the face of overwhelming odds, will appeal to a vast audience.--Stacy Shaw, Denver

A powerful narrative of a life marked by courage and despair. In a riveting memoir, Qaderi recounts her life story for the son she left behind in Afghanistan. When she refused to accept her husband's taking a second wife, he divorced her, taking away their 19-month-old child. "Every day I regret my decision to leave you," she writes in a moving testimony to her love. The author was a young girl during the brutal Russian occupation of Afghanistan; two years after the Russians left in 1989, the Taliban rose to power. Suddenly streets were filled with "young men with beards and long hair and kohl eyeliner…tall and thin as if they had been starved for years." They instituted Sharia law, closed girls schools, and forbade reading; those who disobeyed were publicly whipped or worse. Describing herself as a troublemaker, Qaderi rebelled, daring to home-school girls when she was 13 and soon secretly teaching girls, boys, and even two young members of the Taliban within a mosque. It was there that one of her students taught her to dance--at the risk of all their lives. Boldly, Qaderi managed to set up a writing class under the guise of learning needlework. Merely being female made her physically vulnerable. She was twice sexually harassed, once by a lewd religious leader. Taliban men often forced young girls to marry them, a fate she feared. At the age of 17, her family considered her lucky to marry a local man, and she was taken to live with his family in Tehran. There, women's freedom amazed her. "In Iran," she writes, "a good woman could be an independent and educated woman." Married for 15 years to a husband she grew to love, and who supported her accomplishments, she was shocked when, after they returned to Kabul, he announced that he would take another wife--an act she could not abide. An unvarnished, memorable portrayal of a mother's grief and love. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.