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    Guantanamo Boy
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    Guantanamo Boy
    Unavailable
    Guantanamo Boy
    Ebook364 pages5 hours

    Guantanamo Boy

    By Anna Perera

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Innocent until proven guilty? Not here you're not. Robbed of his childhood, this is one boy's experience of the supposed war on terror. Khalid, a fifteen-year-old Muslim boy from England, is abducted from Pakistan while on holiday with his family. He is taken to Guantanamo Bay and held without charge, where his hopes and dreams are crushed under the cruelest of circumstances. An innocent denied his freedom at a time when most boys are finding theirs, Khalid tries and fails to understand what's happening to him.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAW Teen
    Release dateSep 1, 2012
    ISBN9780807592762
    Unavailable
    Guantanamo Boy
    Author

    Anna Perera

    Anna Perera was born in London, and now lives in Hampshire. She has published four children’s books. When her husband, David Knopfler, played a charity gig for Reprieve, Anna found out about the captive children who inspired Guantanamo Boy.

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    Reviews for Guantanamo Boy

    4/5

    39 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A chilling and harrowing story of a young victim of a profound injustice brought about by paranoia, prejudice, and an appalling disregard for human rights. This novel left me angry and disgusted. It should be widely read and discussed.
    • 4/5
      Khalid is a normal Muslim, English boy who likes to hang out with his friends, annoy his younger siblings and play video games. When vacationing in Pakistan with his family, he is kidnapped and jailed because apparently he is a suspected terrorist. He is tortured, starved and interrogated for two years. Time and again he tells the guards that he is not a terrorist but they do not believe him. While being water boarded, he confesses to what they believe about him, just to make the torture stop.Guantanamo Boy is a gripping read. Taken away from his family for no reason other then he is Muslim makes this story a powerful read. What Khalid went through is a true story for many boys and something that I had no idea even occurred. Hundreds of young boys, some as young as twelve, were suspected of being terrorists and tortured for information. This story really makes you think about what is right and what is wrong regarding prisoners.As a social studies teacher, this is an excellent book to have in my classroom and I think it would be very interesting and informational to create a project based on it. The students would be around the same age as Khalid so they would really be able to understand and identify with the emotions that Khalid went through.Overall, Guantanamo Boy is a story that needs to be told and it is definitely a story that needs to be read. Even with the horrible subject matter of the novel, it will leave you with feelings of hope and forgiveness!
    • 4/5
      Khalid Ahmad is a 15 year old English boy. He watches and plays futbal, works hard at school, has strong family values and an affinity for computer games. He takes a trip to Pakistan with his family, as his father must clean up loose ends after his grandmother dies. Of course, Khalid is in Pakistan in the wake of 9/11 and is picked up for being a terrorist. He is then thrown in jail without a trail, his habeous corpus suspended -- however I don't know if England has habeous corpus. Right-o. Of course, Khalid winds up in Guantanamo, which breaks several geneval laws.What I notice about Guantanamo Boy is the underlying political statements. It is very critical of the war on terror. It is very critical of Guantanamo Bay. For the most part, I understand that criticism. However, I felt it was just a little too blatant for me. I'm not very comfortable when someone forces their political opinion on me. Yet, I do think what Perera has done in raising awareness about the unfair practices of Guantanamo Bay is fabulous.One thing which bothered me, it may not bother you, was the graphic descriptions of the torture Khalid underwent. I'm conflicted as I write this because I especially found it disturbing. However, I suppose being edgy is necessary to get the point across about just how bad torture is, and how confessions extracted under duress aren't quite real confessions at all.Guantanmo Boy was a compelling read, but THE MESSAGE was a little too loud, clear, and blatant for me. I thought this was an average message read.
    • 4/5
      I found this book compelling and quite disturbing. Khalid is a British kid visiting extended family in Pakistan. He's taken into custody as a terrorist. Interrogated, tortured, and abused, he signs a confession to stop the suffering and finds himself sent to Guantanamo. The unjustice riled me up, but I had to keep reading to see if anyone would listen and help Khalid.
    • 5/5
      This was simpy a fantastic read. I read it cover to cover in one sitting.

      This book is so far out of what I normally read. I don't read a lot of these 'issues' books written for teens. I feel they are usually over-done to say the least. This story is not in the same league as anything like those. This book is about an English-born Pakistani boy who leads the life of most normal English boys. He very rarely has seen the hate that is directed at Muslims or Pakistanis until he visits his own homeland, Pakistan.

      Together with his parents he travels to Pakistan, where he is caught up in events which are really beyond his control and before he knows it he has been kidnapped by US forces believing him to be a terrorist and he eventually finds himself in Guantanamo Bay.

      This is a harrowing tale, which had me completely engrossed in this young man's life. The emotions and trauma displayed by this young man have been portrayed so realisticly, I felt like I was experiencing them with him. I don't want to go into detail as it would be more than spoilers, they would ruin the storyline for people who want to read it.

      I NEVER thought I would read anything like this, but it was so highly recommended by book reviewers here in NZ, I just had to find out what they thought was so wonderful.

      This is NOT a tale of American bashing or pro-muslim (which I thought it would be at first). It is a true-to-life story(the authors' note says it is "inspired by real events".) that has certainly got me looking at things in a new way. This story is scary and wonderful, harrowing and moving and a book that I recommend to everyone.

      I am a 44 year-old, white christian woman and yet I was moved to tears and to a stronger understanding of those people in this world who, though they might believe differently than me, want and desire the same things I do. A must read for everyone over the age of 14 no matter their race, creed, colour or religion.
    • 5/5
      Khalid is a 15-year-old British boy of Asian descent. Born and raised in Rochester, computer-mad Khalid is unhappy that his parents are taking him to Pakistan for a family funeral. But like them he little suspects that making such a trip in early 2002 will have dangerous consequences. Kidnapped, held for several months and tortured in several of the notorious 'secret' CIA prisons, Khalid is eventually transported to Guantanamo Bay. There, along with the other orange-suited inmates, he is subjected to further interrogations, indignities and the mind-numbing routine of a life without meaningful human contact or affection. Losing his faith in humanity and nearly losing his mind altogether, Khalid is eventually given access to a lawyer, thanks to the efforts of his family and friends back home. More than two years after he was first kidnapped, Khalid is released and allowed to go home. A really compelling novel. A little slow in a couple of scenes when Khalid is gradually loosing his mind in prison, but otherwise excellent. Ends on a positive note when Khalid returns to his old high school and talks about his experiences. The message is one of tolerance and acceptance of all people, no matter what they look like.
    • 5/5
      A harrowing account of how a fifteen year old boy gets caught up in George Bush's ill conceived "war on terror". Accused of planning to bomb London afet he and some friends collaborated on the creation of a computer game, British school child, Khalid is abducted from Karachi in Pakistan, where he was visiting relatives. His CIA kidnappers will not believe he is 15, nor that he was just passing through a demonstration in Karachi to find his father. They fly him to Kandahar, where he is tortured into signing a confession that is then uses to send him to Guantanamo bay.This is an immensely painful story - mostly because so much of it is based in real events. If anything, the inhumanity is toned down to make it suitable for young adult readers. Khalid, the protagonist, is fictional - but the story is true, and it is a book that will make you angry, depressed, frightened and sad. And yet there is a message of hope there too. Hope that we can answer evil with good, and turn away from the violence that is perpetrated against us.This book moved me deeply. I knew it would have to - it is one of those subjects that cannot leave you untouched. But depressing as the subject material must inevitably be, and despite the evil it describes - I cannot recommend this book highly enough. There is no glossing over of unhelpful facts here. There is no wallowing in self pity or partisanship. Instead there is a story of evil, injustice, understanding, love and ultimately hope.
    • 5/5
      This is a powerful story. The author has taken the events of 9/11 and shown us how the events thereafter were just a horrific. Khalid is a fifteen-year-old boy in England. He and his family go to Pakistan to help his aunts find a place to move. His father ventures off to look at a rental and doesn’t return. His mother sends Khalid to the same address to look for his father. He doesn’t find him. On his way back to his aunt’s house he is caught up physically in a demonstration. He manages to make his way back to his aunt’s home. Later that evening men in black break into the house and kidnap him. He is accused of being a terrorist and eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. His family has no idea at first what has happened to him. The book details his abuse and torture while imprisoned. It seems obvious the author of the book did not like the Bush administration. I can overlook that in this book. What I could not overlook was the fact that although this book is fiction, we know that young innocent children and teens were abducted and accused of being terrorists and sent to Guantanamo. We also have knowledge of the humiliation, abuse and torture that took place. The author was not afraid to speak out about these atrocities. If we hide things like these from our children then they will repeat our mistakes. This is a bitter pill to swallow. However, I remember my parents telling me about the Japanese-Americans being sent to interment camps here in the United States. We learned nothing. After 9/11 we looked at people of a different nationality and different religion and decided, or judged them based on those two factors. Although I would not recommend this to my sixth graders because of the graphic nature of it, I would recommend it to seventh grade and up. The book has a timeline of events in the back, several sources to check the information and the most wonderful questions. To me the questions were so thought provoking that they could be used not just for this book but for the topic of terrorism and family and many other things. This has been one of the better books I have read this summer. It is not a light read. It stands at over 300 pages and reads quickly, but the topic itself is heavy. I found myself crying often at the injustice. The author definitely has a way with words to say the least.
    • 5/5
      A very moving and inspirational read. Anna Perera pulls no punches with this highly emotive and descriptive teenager’s novel. It isn’t until you’ve read the novel that you can reflect on the serenity from the opening scene; the clash of images in the rest of the novel will unsettle most readers. It would be good if this appears either as a whole text or as extracts on future syllabuses across many departments in schools, it offers a wealth of information to explore.I only know of Guantanamo Bay from what I see in the media and it was good to then read in The Times and The Guardian how Perara developed the concept for the novel. Acknowledging her main source, Perara admits not wanting to use detainees’ stories as they are their stories to be told and not hers. This alone touched me but left me wondering how evocative her novel would then be; I didn’t have to wonder for long; in my opinion she has been successful at becoming a 15 year old Muslim.Khalid is like any other teenager until a family holiday to Pakistan. A holiday he didn’t want to take and continually lets his family know this. I won’t go in to how he is abducted or the actual circumstances but I really did feel Khalid’s sense of confusion at the situation he was faced with. The narrative flows and I found it hard to put the novel down, in fact I didn’t want to as I just wanted to keep on reading about Khalid’s ordeal. I think this book will haunt me for a long time and I will recommend it to everyone! I was reduced to tears towards the end, resulting in me needing a few moments of reflection once I’d reached the end. The novel is complete, I can’t go into much more because I don’t want to mention the outcome of the novel but I wasn’t left with any questions. A very plain cover to the novel but equally an effective cover is sure to catch many readers’ eyes on a shop’s shelves and the added touch of orange on the end of the pages adds to the impact. A very clever novel, one that would be good to read with others as you are sure to have plenty to discuss.