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The Eleventh Trade by Alyssa Hollingsworth
They say you can't get something for nothing, but nothing is all Sami has. When his grandfather’s most-prized possession — a traditional Afghan instrument called a rebab — is stolen, Sami resolves to get it back. He finds it at a music store, but it costs $700, and Sami doesn’t have even one penny. What he does have is a keychain that has caught the eye of his classmate. If he trades the keychain for something more valuable, could he keep trading until he has $700? Sami is about to find out.
Review from School Library Journal:
Twelve-year-old Sami and his grandfather, Baba, are Afghan refugees who recently arrived in Boston with their prized musical instrument: a rebab. When the rebab is stolen from them in a subway station, Baba loses his source of income. Determined to find the beloved instrument, Sami befriends a resourceful, tech-savvy, soccer-loving classmate, Dan, who helps Sami locate the rebab in a secondhand music store. Sami must buy it back for $700. Unbeknown to his dispirited grandfather, Sami begins a series of trades to acquire the money, starting with his Manchester United keychain for a seemingly "broken" iPod. Joining Dan's rec center soccer team, Sami makes new friends and discovers a support network of peers and adults who help him regain the rebab and adjust to his new life. Sami's first-person narration is youthful, engaging, observant, and interspersed with personal references: Pashto vocabulary and sayings, vivid recollections of his deceased mother and father, prayer and fasting customs during Ramadan, and searing memories of his escape from a Taliban suicide bombing. Sami is not immune to the harsh realities of theft, poverty, the hate speech of a classmate who labels him a terrorist, and his own recurring nightmares of explosions, death, and harrowing escape. Background information on the Taliban insurgency and U.S. military in Afghanistan is minimal.
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