100 pages • 3 hours read
Atia AbawiA Land of Permanent Goodbyes
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Introduction
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes
- Genre: Fiction; young adult
- Originally Published: 2018
- Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 760L; grades 7-9
- Structure/Length: 3 parts, 33 chapters; approx. 288 pages; approx. 6 hours, 39 minutes on audio
- Protagonist/Central Conflict: Tareq’s life is turned upside down when most of his family dies in a Syrian airstrike. He and his remaining family know that the only way to survive is to flee. As they make the perilous journey through Turkey and Greece, Tareq must find the courage to keep going and the fortitude to survive.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Bombings; murder; drowning; war themes; death of family members; sexual assault
Atia Abawi, Author
- Bio: Born in 1982 in West Germany to Afghan refugee parents; raised in the United States; graduated from Virginia Tech; worked as a reporter for a small Maryland news station; moved to Atlanta to work for CNN before moving on to NBC News; worked as a foreign correspondent based in Kabul, Afghanistan; fluent in Dari; reported on the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden; has written articles for the National Review and The Huffington Post about Islam and Afghanistan
- Other Works: The Secret Sky: A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan (2014); She Persisted: Sally Ride (2021)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
- The Refugee Experience
- The Universal Nature of Trauma
- The Destructive Nature of Human Greed
STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:
- Develop an understanding of the historical contexts regarding the Syrian Civil War that incites Tareq’s conflict.
- Analyze paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of The Refugee Experience, The Universal Nature of Trauma, and The Destructive Nature of Human Greed.
- Plan and construct visual media to contribute to a volunteer group to become a “helper” based on text details.
- Analyze and evaluate plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding Little Syria, helpers and villains, and other topics.
