Two Related Books

For those of you who have extra reading time, there are two more books that relate to our April selection, Three Cups of Tea.  I haven't read either of them, but they are both highly recommended.  I'll put the Amazon links here so that you can read the reviews.

The first is The Dressmaker of Khair Khana:  Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.    The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the incredible true story of this unlikely entrepreneur who mobilized her community under the Taliban. Former ABC News reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmon spent years on the ground reporting Kamila's story.  These women are not victims; they are the glue that holds families together; they are the backbone and the heart of their nation.  This book moves beyond the headlines to transport you to an Afghanistan you have never seen before. This is a story of war, but it is also a story of sisterhood and resilience in the face of despair. Kamila Sidiqi's journey will inspire you, but it will also change the way you think about one of the most important political and humanitarian issues of our time.

The second book is also set in the Himalayan Mountains, but on the other side of India in the country of Nepal.  Little Princes:  One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan tells the story of an adventurer who begins a year long trip volunteering in an orphanage where he is stunned to find out that the children were not orphans at all.  Child traffickers were promising families in remote villages to protect their children from the civil war—for a huge fee—by taking them to safety. They would then abandon the children far from home, in the chaos of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.  For Conor, what began as a footloose adventure becomes a commitment to reunite the children he had grown to love with their families, but this would be no small task. Little Princes is a true story of families and children, and what one person is capable of when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. At turns tragic, joyful, and hilarious, Little Princes is a testament to the power of faith and the ability of love to carry us beyond our wildest expectations.