Last week, I read Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year by Nina Hamza. This realistic fiction novel is about a twelve-year-old boy, Ahmed Aziz, who is upset when his family moves all the way from Hawaii to Minnesota for his dad's medical treatment. Although he hates reading, he starts one of the books assigned for his accelerated Language Arts class, Holes, on the plane and discovers it's not so bad. He would still prefer to slack off, though. Things get even tougher for him when he captures the attention of a neighborhood bully, Jack, even before school begins. On the first day, though, Ahmed finds a copy of Bridge to Terabithia in the school library that belonged to his uncle, who died before he was was born. Soon, he finds himself learning more about his uncle. As the school year goes on, he slowly grows to enjoy the discussions about the books he has to read, but when his dad's health takes a turn for the worse after surgery, he wonders if he'll ever adjust to living in Minnesota.
Although I initially hated Ahmed's attitude at the beginning of this book because it was frustrating and I couldn't relate, I actually really liked the story once he started to show some character growth. It was awesome how he went from hating books to having some really great ideas for the discussions with his group in Language Arts. I also especially loved his teacher, Mrs. Gaarder. It was beautiful how much she cared about Ahmed and did whatever she could to support him. There was a scene in the book when she didn't back down from staying with Ahmed when he really needed someone to have his back, and I thought that was absolutely incredible. Overall, I appreciated the lessons that Ahmed learned by the end of the book, especially when he had to make an important choice regarding Jack. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt like they didn't fit in or struggled with a big change in their life.
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