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Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed--This Week's Booktalk

This week in my live session I book talked Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed.  This was a book I'd had in my to read stack for a really long time so I was super excited to finish it up last week and got a chance to talk with some of our CMS Owls in Google meet during my Tuesday live session. 



This book was set in modern day Pakistan and Amal and her family are farmers in a small village.  Amal is lucky enough to go to school unlike many of the other girls in her village as educating females in Pakistan is not a priority.  Her family does own the land they farm, but they are, by no means, wealthy.  She has several siblings and due to poor crop production for several years, her father is very much in debt to the wealthy family that basically owns the whole village and all the area around them. 

Amal's mother has had another child and she is now expected to stay home and help out for several months from school and she is frustrated about this when she encountered a man who insisted that she hand over the items she just purchased from the market.  Little did Amal know, this was part of the wealthy family who rules the village and this sets off a series of events that leads to Amal being enslaved by this family.  This book made me so sad but also so hopeful.  If everyone has the courage that Amal shows in her actions then hopefully less and less children and adults will be held and expected to work against their will in places like Pakistan.


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