Girl of Kosovo

Girl of Kosovo by Alice Mead is about the life of an eleven year old Albanian living in Serbia during the late 1990s. During this time the Serbians are persecuting Albanians in their country because they think they are terrorists. The young girl faces many trials and ends up losing many people she loves from Serbian attacks on their village. One night her life is changed forever. Her family wakes up to bombs exploding near their house and gun fire. Her family quickly gets their shoes on and tries to run away from the attacks. Unfortunately they do not leave in time and a bomb explodes leaving three of her family members dead and her leg severely damaged. Zana (little girl) now must face Serbian hospitals by herself along with the death of her family. Her best friend is Serbian and this war against their two countries has caused a great void between the two girls. Will Zana be able to recover from the loss of her family and her damaged leg? Will she be able to mend the friendship with her Serbian friend?
    I thought this was a very sad but interesting book. I have heard about the Albanian war against the Serbians from people who lived it so I read this book to gain more perspective on the issue. It was a very insightful book into the lives of people from a different country that are being persecuted. As I was reading this book I thought about the history of the United States and how poorly we treated African Americans. It was not nearly to the extreme as in the book but the situations are very similar. It broke my heart to see how cruel human beings can be to each other.
    This book was a little graphic so I wouldn't recommend it to children younger than fifth grade. The text is easy to read but the content and issues in the book are not for really young children. I am still unsure as to whether or not I would use this book as a read aloud because of the content of the book but it is one that I would have in my classroom library. I would also make a point of telling my students about the book in case it may be something to motivate one of my readers to read because it is something they are interested in. If I were to use this book as a read aloud I would make sure to talk to my students about how cruel humans can be to each and what the effect it has on the whole world. I would incorporate some of the history of the U.S. into our discussions about people being treated poorly. I would then connect it to the students' lives today with bullying. I think making students aware of the devastation we can cause to each other by our cruel acts will make children think a little differently before they act.