Young Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan. Because Parvana's father has a foreign education, he is arrested by the Taliban. Women cannot appear in public unless covered head to toe, go to school, or work outside the home, so the family becomes increasingly desperate until Parvana conceives a plan.

Offers a provocative assessment of the growing tensions between Islam and the Western world, tracing the roots of international terrorism by Islamist extremists and revealing how democracy and Islam can be compatible.