.com Review

"How was it that foreigners could come take pictures of us when we were dead, but couldn't come to help us stay alive?" Eleven-year-old Zana Dugolli doesn't understand how the rest of the world can send reporters to record the violence that is inflicted daily on Kosovo-born Albanians by the brutal Serbian military, yet do nothing to stop it. In the late 1990s, Zana's rural village is targeted when the Serbian ruling class steps up its efforts to completely wipe out ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Unbelievingly, she watches as a bomb explodes right in front of her, killing her father and two brothers. Zana's own leg is shattered by the blast, and the physical pain added to the grief of losing half her family is almost more than she can bear. Sick with fear, Zana wonders how much longer she, her mother, and her remaining brother can face the demoralizing effects of so much hate. "All I knew was that I was slowly losing my life. I felt betrayed by everyone and everything. I couldn't trust the ground itself. If a bomb fell on it, it could swallow me whole."

Alice Mead, author of the much-lauded Adem's Cross, continues to draw attention to the horrific Serbian-Albanian conflict with Girl of Kosovo. Brutal and moving, this novel is sure to stir the activist that lives in the heart of every teen and propel young readers to a greater understanding of race, war, and politics. (Ages 10 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

From Publishers Weekly

As in her Adem's Cross, Mead places a human face on the Kosovo crisis by focusing on an Albanian family ravaged by war. Even after her father and brothers are killed and her leg is gravely injured in a Serb attack, 11-year-old Zana, the narrator, struggles to heed her father's advice: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate. Whatever happens." Zana's friendship with a Serbian girl, Lena, and her trip behind enemy lines to a hospital in Belgrade provide Zana with evidence of kindness to weigh against the brutality in the Serb faction, while her cowardly KLA uncle Vizar illuminates weaknesses among the Albanians. Mead puts the war into a context that young readers will understand. The family watches sports on ESPN and Zana's brother plays Nintendo; at the same time, they bury guns and food and sleep in their clothes, poised to retreat. Through Zana, the author stresses the random cruelty of the war in Kosovo, and her anger stretches to include foreign journalists: "How was it that foreigners could come take pictures of us when we were dead, but couldn't come to help us stay alive? I wanted to let the air out of their fancy tires so they would be stuck here, trapped the way we were." The ending is a little convenient (Zana helps save Lena's family from the vengeful hatred of their Albanian neighbors), but most readers will find the story powerful and hard-hitting. Ages 10-up.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-The power of childhood friendships and generous spirits to overcome ethnic hatred is the theme of this moving story of an 11-year-old Albanian victim of the civil war in Kosovo. As Zana Dugolli and her family attempt to escape an attack, her father and two brothers are killed, and Zana is severely wounded. Hospitalized in Belgrade for three months, the terrified child encounters kindness on the part of a Serbian surgeon and, helped by the Red Cross, returns home on crutches. Her recovery is complicated by recurring infections, but the attentions of a British doctor and the revival of a friendship with Lena, the Serbian girl next door, help the healing process. When infection flares up, her mother convinces Lena's father to take her back to a hospital where she waits out the NATO bombing. In the end, she is reunited with the family she thought she had lost. When the villagers, including her older brother, want to take revenge on Lena's family, Zana saves their lives by standing with them. The contrasts in the protagonist's world are clear. Their television plays Venezuelan soap operas but food is cooked on a wood stove and water pumped by hand, outside. However, there is little to anchor this story in a specific setting or culture. Zana could be an American child, Lena is not developed at all, and readers never witness their former friendship. Mead's sympathy for children caught in adult conflicts is evident, and readers will likely come to share that sympathy but are unlikely to develop a better understanding of the complexities of the Balkan world.-Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 5-10. Based on the experience of one Albanian family caught up in the ethnic wars in Kosovo, this moving novel tells the story through the eyes of a young girl, Zana Dugolli, 11, who sees her father and two of her brothers killed in an attack on her village. Her foot is smashed, and she spends months alone in the hospital, shocked and depressed. When she returns home, she sees killers round up people in her schoolyard. Her enraged older brother joins the terrorist underground, but Zana hears her father's voice in her head: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate." There's no exploitation of the brutality, but the facts are devastating. Mead provides a historical introduction about the conflict as well as an afterword about her own 1999 visits to refugee camps. But readers will see that Zana can't make out the politics--she doesn't care about Serbs or Albanians or NATO. She knows that in war everyone becomes an enemy. The power in the story is the personal drama, especially Zana's enduring bond with her Serbian best friend and neighbor. There's much to talk about. Add this to the Holocaust curriculum. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

*"Based on the experience of one Albanian family caught upo in the ethnic wars in Kosovo, this moving novel tells the story through the eyes of a young girl." -Starred, Booklist

About the Author

Alice Mead is the author of several novels, including the Junebug books and another story of Kosovo, Adem's Cross, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. She lives in Maine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Girl of Kosovo

ONE

I loved our village life. I loved our farm and the apple orchard. I had my friends at school, and at home I did chores--helping with the cow, fetching water, bringing in firewood. It was an honor for me to serve tea to my father and his friends, like Mehmet Bagu, the beekeeper. He was old, and my father respected him very much. Mehmet gave us honey made from apple blossoms.

My best friend, Lena Goran, lived next door, just up the lane, although we didn't see each other much anymore. Lena's family was Serb, and mine, Albanian. "Zana," my Uncle Vizar told me a few years ago, "you shouldn't play with her." I didn't like him very much.

I was used to the Serb police, stopping us in the roads and shops, searching the boys' backpacks when we walked to school. The police had always been there. Ididn't pay any attention to them really, although I knew enough not to speak at all around them. That was because I couldn't speak Serbian very well.

But the way I remember it now, everything changed on one day. It was the day of the Serbian New Year, January 6, 1998. I was eleven. Mama, my fifteen-year-old brother, Ilir, and I had taken the bus to Prishtinë, our capital, to sell eggs at the street market by the soccer stadium. Luckily, my other two brothers, Luan and Burim, stayed home.

That day there were police everywhere in the marketplace. Some were in uniform, some in everyday clothes--but even without any uniforms, you could still tell they were police because of how big and muscular they were.

They were taking money from people. A few were drunk, probably because it was their New Year's and they had been celebrating with lots of beer. They took whatever they wanted from the Albanian farmers who had come to town--watches, fruit, anything. I guess Milosevic, the Serb leader, didn't pay them enough, so they had to take from us Albanians.

An old man, a villager wearing a traditional white felt hat, began to yell at them. "You have no right to bully us like this!" he shouted. "You're no better than thieves!"

The police grabbed his arm and twisted it up high behind his back. The street was packed with people. Butnow everyone stepped back, and a space cleared around the old man. I was standing at the edge of the circle and could see everything.

They twisted his arm up so high that he stood on his tiptoes. Then they began to beat him in front of everybody. They punched his stomach. He tried to bend over, but he couldn't. Four of them were beating him. One took out his club and cracked it against the side of the old man's head near his eye. Blood began to flow.

The Albanian men in the crowd did nothing to help. No one dared to move or even speak. We all watched in silence. We knew that anyone who tried to help would be arrested.

Finally, after about five minutes, the police let go and the old man dropped to the ground. He lay hunched up in a mud puddle. They kicked him, but not that hard, and told him to go to Albania. Then they left with their German marks and food.

Ilir whispered to me, "Someday I'll kill them for this. I will never allow them to forget what they've done to us."

I looked at him in surprise.

"I will. Don't you believe me?" he asked more loudly.

"Shut up!" I whispered. "What if someone hears you?"

But that was only the beginning of our trouble. By afternoon, the bus station was full of police and soldiers inlong, brown wool coats over their camouflage uniforms. Compared to the police, the soldiers looked so young. They were boys, really, with pink cheeks and ears. Not much older than Ilir.

In the crowd waiting for the buses, I saw Lena and her mother. I waved hi to Lena when no one was looking, and she grinned. I knew my mother and Mrs. Goran wouldn't speak. There were only three Serb families in our village. Most Serbs lived in Malishevë or Mitrovicë or Fushë Kosovë.

Lena and her mother stood at the head of the line and boarded the bus first. When we got on, three policemen did, too. One sat in the very first seat behind the driver. The other two sat way in the back. Lena and her mom sat in the middle, two rows in front of us.

It would take us over an hour to reach our little village in the Drenicë region. We lived just past the town of Gllogovc.

We had gone only a few kilometers when the bus was stopped at a large police roadblock in Fushë Kosovë, a Serbian village on the outskirts of Pristine. Well, we Albanians called it Fushë Kosovë, which meant Field of Kosova. The Serbs called it Kosovo Polje, or the Field of Blackbirds. In Kosova, there are two names for all the towns.

The policemen began to walk slowly down the aisle of the bus, checking everyone's identification cards. "IDs.Here, hand it over. What's in that bag? Open it. Good. Next. You--where's your ID?"

They were looking for weapons. Each policeman took out a knife and used it to poke through the bags and under the seats. They even stabbed at the ugly brown bus curtains to see if anything was hidden there. But what could be hidden in those short little curtains? They did it to scare us.

All this time, no one spoke. The bus windows were steamed up from everyone's breath. I tried to ignore the approaching police by drawing funny faces in the steam. In the old days, when Lena and I were together constantly, we played ticktacktoe on the bus windows. Now I couldn't even talk to her in public.

Without thinking, I wrote my name with my finger, Zana Dugolli, but quickly erased it so the police wouldn't see any Albanian words. Zana means "nectar" or "magic one."

When they got to us, they stared at Ilir too long. My heart thumped. Could they somehow have overheard the angry words he had whispered to me in the marketplace? That wasn't possible, was it?

Ilir blushed and stared at the back of the seat in front of him. Mama sat next to him, looking completely calm, her hands quietly folded on her bag.

They picked up our shopping bags and searched them. Then one said to Ilir, "How old are you?"

"Fifteen," he answered in Serbian. They would have beaten him for sure if he had answered in Albanian. All the people on the bus held their breath, sensing trouble. The police studied Ilir's ID card.

"Hmm. You live near Glogovac?"

"Yes."

"Do you know Adem Jashari?" he asked casually.

"No."

"No? Of course you do. Where does he live?"

"I don't know."

Those were lies. We all knew Adem Jashari, at least we all knew of him. He lived in Prekaz, another small village in the Drenicë region, and was the leader of a new secret army called the Kosova Liberation Army, which had killed some Serb policemen during the past year. Every Albanian child knew that.

The policeman grabbed Ilir's arm. "Come on. Get off the bus."

He pulled Ilir, making him scramble over Mama. Mama got up, too, and followed them down the aisle so that Ilir wouldn't be alone with the police.

Would they beat him? I knew they had taken him because of his age. Now they would call him a terrorist and say he was bringing weapons for the KLA. And the terrible part was that my father and my Uncle Vizar had joined the KLA two weeks before. It was supposed to bea secret from us kids, but we all knew. In a village like ours, there were no real secrets.

By now I was crumpling up with fear. My heart felt tight and I was crying inside, but I didn't make a sound. Why had we ever bothered to go to Prishtinë to sell a few eggs? The moments dragged by.

I couldn't bear sitting and waiting. I had to find out what was happening. So I got to my feet and went to the front of the bus. The police had pulled the driver off as well, and the bus door was open. They had taken Ilir and Mama into a large shed by the side of the road. Meanwhile, two other policemen were questioning the driver. They made him open the compartments under the bus so they could look for weapons there. I hesitated by the door.

An old woman in one of the front seats caught hold of my puffy ski jacket and tugged me back inside. "Stay here," she whispered. "Your mother doesn't need two children to worry about. Go sit down now. Everything will be all right. Go!"

I knew she was right. If I got off, too, that would only make things worse for everyone. But it was agony to feel so helpless. I was powerless to help my brother, just as we had all been powerless to help the old man at the market this morning. Ducking my head, I blinked back tears as I hurried to my seat.

When she saw me pass by crying, Lena's mother immediately got up and got off the bus. I peeked out the window as she entered the shed. Lena turned around in her seat and gave me a tiny smile. Maybe her mother would tell the soldiers and police to leave Ilir alone.

And then, suddenly, Mama and Ilir were back, edging their way up the aisle, followed by Lena's mother. The driver was back, too. He shut the door, and the bus lurched forward. The police took their seats. No one spoke. I looked at my mother, but she sat as still and calm as ever, her hands folded as quietly as two round stones.

Copyright © 2001 by Alice Mead