The Glass Collector

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 23 JAN 2012

A strong narrative voice captures multiple viewpoints of the "Zabbaleen," Coptic Christian citizens of Cairo's "Garbage City," while closely following 15-year-old orphan Aaron, the title character, as he struggles through the challenges of daily survival. Perera (Guantanamo Boy) draws a vivid portrait of the community's squalid living conditions, as people eat, sleep, and work amid piles of rotting garbage collected for recycling, while dreaming of better futures. Beautiful Shareen resists marriage to elderly, "wizened" Daniel; Jacob "longs to make a name for himself"; Rachel hopes to be a veterinarian; and Aaron, living in a tenement hovel with his hostile stepfather's family, finds beauty in glass and dreams of one day owning a perfume shop. Meanwhile, stench, heat, filth, hunger, danger, physical pain, and grief from too many early deaths contrast with the "open, clean, beautiful lane leading to the limestone carvings and statues surrounding the church," the institution that holds the community together. When Aaron's stealing leads to ostracism, the people who correct him also protect him. A powerful rendering of human struggle, resilience, and hope. Ages 13 up.