Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Oh-Puh-lease... 2

Mini book review in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald by Fiona Capp: Dear World: A Syrian Girl's Story of War & Plea for Peace, Bana Alabed:

"For her first three years, Bana Alabed lived an ordinary, middle-class life with her family in Aleppo. Then bombs started exploding in her neighbourhood and everything changed. This child's eye view of the unfolding conflict in Syria brings home with great poignancy what it is like to have your childhood shattered by war. During the siege of Aleppo, her family's apartment is hit by a bomb and all they can do is crouch in their disintegrating basement and 'be stoned by the sky'. Bana's account is interspersed with letters from her mother, Fatemah, who writes eloquently of her guilt at being unable to shield her daughter from so much pain. Dear World is a moving antidote to compassion fatigue."

Note: Dear World: Inside the 'Bana of Aleppo' propaganda story (21stcenturywire.com, 29/9/17) is a sobering antidote to the warm and fuzzies should any of you succumb to this particular malady after reading the above.

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