This book would be good for 3-5 graders because of the depth of the topic. It isn't a very long book but some of the content may be too mature for younger students.
This book is about a young girl named Parvana who lives in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule. Since she is a young girl, she is not allowed out in public without being escorted by a male, so when her father is wrongfully arrested she changes her appearance and sets out to rescue her father.
This would be a good book to have available in the classroom that can teach students about the Taliban rule or the war in Afghanistan.

If you don't get a tear in your eye, you're heartless.

It's 2001, and Pavana lives in Kabul, Afghanistan. A taliban soldier who likes power strongly believes she should be home, behind closed doors. He then has her dad arrested, and the family has no way to get food or water because women can't leave their homes. Pavana cuts her hair to look like a boy in order to be the breadwinner and take over her father's business, which is selling a few goods, reading and writing for people.

You know what happened in 2001 in America which caused the US to bomb Afghanistan, right? With war coming, Pavana has little time to try and rescue her father. The only way out is an arranged marriage for her or her sister. It's a truthful book about what life was like for women before the war and, I fear, what life is now like for women now that the Taliban is once again in charge of the government. ( )

It's got great visuals (from the movie), and it tells the story, but it feels like a massively truncated version of the original. The storyline can also be confusing. I prefer the original. ( )

It is a story about a girl living in a world that does not allow women to do anything but sit at home. She is forced to pretend to be a boy and find the courage to provide for her family in a place full of men she once feared. ( )

I've never actually read The Breadwinner, so I can't compare it to the novel or anything like that. The art is nice - it looks a little computer generated to me (I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that, though - the edges are too smooth? Everything is a little too glossy and put together?).

It seems like it ends so incredibly abruptly. I appreciate that everything is uncertain in times of war, and you don't get clear answers, but this seemed set up to give you all that. Parvana makes a promise to her friend to meet her in twenty years, she's reunited with her father, her mother and sister don't leave... but nothing is wrapped up and it seemed to be leading to. How will the family find each other again? Her mother and her sister are two young women walking around outside the city alone, which is dangerous normally, but we saw her mother beat up earlier in the book for doing the exact same thing! And now that they have their father back, what now? He's still unable to work, and the city is getting dangerous for more than just women. I'm not sure if the novel ends like this as well (and I know there are sequels to the novel, so those probably answer some questions), but it's suddenness is a little shocking. ( )