When Abby's first letter arrives at a small school in Afghanistan, Sadeed Bayat is chosen to be her pen pal...well, kind of. He is the best writer, but he is also a boy, and in his village it is not appropriate for a boy to correspond with a girl. So his younger sister dictates and signs the letter, until Sadeed decides what his sister is telling Abby isn't what he'd like Abby to know. As letters go back and forth between Illinois and Afghanistan,...

A sequel to The Breadwinner, Parvana is imprisoned by the American authorities after being found in a bombed out school, but she will not tell them anything, even her name. The Taliban are not longer in power but the war is far from over.