It Ain't So Awful, Falafel cover

It Ain't So Awful, Falafel

by Firoozeh Dumas

Iranian American in 1979. Her country is on the news. Not in a good way.

For you if

your child needs to see someone navigate being Iranian American during a time when America decided Iran was the enemy

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Zomorod — who renames herself Cindy to fit in — is an Iranian American girl in California in the late 1970s navigating the Iran hostage crisis from the inside of an American middle school. Her father is an optimist. Her classmates are not always kind. Dumas writes with the same warm comedy she brought to Funny in Farsi but pitched directly at middle grade readers — the specific humiliation and resilience of being the kid whose country is suddenly on the news for the wrong reasons. The most important Iranian American middle grade novel and the one that most honestly captures what it feels like to be caught between two countries in conflict.

Where This Book Lives

Setting
Iran • Middle East
Voice
Written by a Iranian author

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