The Eleventh Trade

Gr 4–6—Twelve-year-old Sami and his grandfather, Baba, are Afghan refugees who recently arrived in Boston with their prized musical instrument: a rebab. When the rebab is stolen from them in a subway station, Baba loses his source of income. Determined to find the beloved instrument, Sami befriends a resourceful, tech-savvy, soccer-loving classmate, Dan, who helps Sami locate the rebab in a secondhand music store. Sami must buy it back for $700. Unbeknown to his dispirited grandfather, Sami begins a series of trades to acquire the money, starting with his Manchester United keychain for a seemingly "broken" iPod. Joining Dan's rec center soccer team, Sami makes new friends and discovers a support network of peers and adults who help him regain the rebab and adjust to his new life. Sami's first-person narration is youthful, engaging, observant, and interspersed with personal references: Pashto vocabulary and sayings, vivid recollections of his deceased mother and father, prayer and fasting customs during Ramadan, and searing memories of his escape from a Taliban suicide bombing. Sami is not immune to the harsh realities of theft, poverty, the hate speech of a classmate who labels him a terrorist, and his own recurring nightmares of explosions, death, and harrowing escape. Background information on the Taliban insurgency and U.S. military in Afghanistan is minimal.