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Everything Sad is Untrue

(a true story)

Audiobook
3 of 5 copies available
3 of 5 copies available
At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the
moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy...and further back to the fieldsnear the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers
bled red like the yolk of the sunset had burst over everything, and further back still to the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).
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  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The author intrigues listeners from start to finish with his powerful memoir. Both Daniel Nayeri's narrative and his narration express the innocence, tenderness, humor, and losses of the 12-year-old refugee he once was. Nayeri captivates listeners with a patchwork of compelling memories and stories woven from Persian history and myth. He takes listeners from his childhood in his native Iran to his perilous flight from home and finally to his painful middle school experience in the asylum state of Oklahoma. Nayeri blends his heart and humor with a poignant voice to deliver tales as gripping as the ones Scheherazade told for 1001 nights. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 15, 2020
      Marked by a distinctive voice—a straightforward mix of confiding, slyly humorous, and unsentimentally sorrowful—Nayeri’s (Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow) impressive autobiographical novel is narrated by 12-year-old Khosrou, known as Daniel, who models himself after the legendary Scheherazade. The chapterless “patchwork story” follows Daniel through his dreamlike early childhood in Iran, a year in an Italian refugee camp with his sister and “unstoppable” mother (but without his larger-than-life father, who chose to stay behind), and their eventual asylum in Oklahoma. The text moves nimbly back and forth in time, depicting with equal vividness ancient Persian tales (a jasmine-scented village with saffron fields, courtyards, and fountains), family history (a legendary ancestral doctor), and the challenges of navigating life as an outsider in “a land of concrete and weathermen.” Interspersed with his experiences is the narrator’s accumulated wisdom on a broad range of subjects—cultural differences in bathroom habits, the creation of Persian rugs, the roots of today’s conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis—which help establish Daniel’s identity as a knowledgeable, thoughtful storyteller. Mesmerizing and hard-hitting at once, this work of personal mythology is a rare treasure of a book. Ages 10–up. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:800
  • Text Difficulty:3-4

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