HOPE AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT | Tiny Dancer: The Incredible True Story of a Young Burn Victim's Journey from...

Beautiful story, beautiful child and people | Tiny Dancer: The Incredible True Story of a Young Burn Victim's Journey from Afghanistan | Anthony Flacco

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	• Tiny Dancer: The Incredible True Story of a Young Burn Victim's Journey from Afghanistan Anthony Flacco Thomas Dunne Books, 2005 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Other Incredible Story

When I started to read TINY DANCER, I was expecting to read about the miraculous transformation of a horribly scarred burn victim to healthy girl. That story is told, of course, but it serves as a backdrop for the real story. The true miracle is the network of the American military, U.S. State Department, Non-Government Organizations and stateside citizens who all do what they can to help a stranger in need, despite all the "perfectly good reasons" not to get involved.

What makes this book a remarkable read, however, is the author's seeming ability to get inside Zubaida's head and tell the story from her perspective. Mr. Flacco writes with compassion and empathy in a style that grabs the reader's attention from the first page.

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HOPE AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT

From the moment nine and a half year old Zubaida Hasan accidentally fell into a kerosene fire while heating water for her bath,I could not put down TINY DANCER. Yes, this is a story filled with Zubaida's physical and mental pain, but this is also a marvelous, true story of hope and human caring ... from the American Green Beret soldier who by chance saw Zubaida and her father on a street in Afghanistan to Dr. Peter and his wife, Rebecca, Grossman in Los Angeles, CA. This is a story of hope, and the very best of human nature in difficult times. Zubaida's transformation back to normalcy thanks to Dr. Grossman's skill and the many individuals willing to become involved despite the possible repercussions to their own careers reinforced my belief in the inherent goodness of people. Bravo!

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Beautiful story, beautiful child and people

I was first introduced to Zubaida and Dr. Peter Grossman in a Discovery Health Channel program, and after reading this book, have seen other angles to this story, the most telling being the love shown by her father, who might have abandoned her to die but didn't.

This is a young woman whose spirit could not be extinguished no matter what happened to her, and let's hope she stays this way. Great things await her, no matter where she ends up in this world.

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Fictionalized writing style is not right for this story

This is a very incredible and inspiring story of human generosity and perseverance that transcends cultures - and you have already read about the subject matter in the other reviews so I am not going to repeat that. What I did not like was the fictionalized style of prose. The author seems to go inside the heads of the main characters and describe exactly their feelings, thoughts, perceptions etc. and this gives the prose a fictionalized, exaggerated, and subjective feel which applied to a true story, did not somehow feel right. I would have preferred it if the people in this story could have been interviewed to find out exactly how they felt rather than the getting the author's imaginary versions of their reactions. Even though most readers here seem to like it, I feel that this fictionalized style wasn't the right choice for this true story.

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A miraculous tale of endurance and compassion...

From Zubaida's catastrophic accident until her return to Afghanistan, TINY DANCER is a remarkable series of miraculous events that is a pageant of human compassion. TINY DANCER is both a marvel and an ordeal to read. Through Anthony Flacco's erudite and eminently readable narration, I suffered the child's torture that would have made me mad before it murdered me. Set against the tumultuous background of 9/11 and the American invasion of Afghanistan, the beginning of the book belongs to Zubaida's devoted father who, in defiance of all that he knew and in exhaustion of all that he had for the sole purpose of saving his little girl, almost eclipses the story of the child who held fast to life with her bare hands. TINY DANCER revealed a kindness in the American Armed Forces that I never would have dreamed existed as the process unfolded that brought the child to the United States and her salvation at great risk to her benefactors. Flacco's revelation of the "domino" effect that supported Zubaida as she was rebuilt and reinvented in our country was compelling with a flow that kept me reading and missing it when I couldn't. TINY DANCER is graceful and powerful and at times, even funny. It's a glorious story with a large human heart and lean muscles. Anthony Flacco is showing great promise as a writer of creative non-fiction. I anticipate his next effort eagerly. To read TINY DANCER is to renew one's faith and to warm one's heart. She's a 21st Century Anne Frank who reveals that in spite of everything, there's good in all of us.

Bill Jackson

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The astonishing story of a brave little girl from Afghanistan who not only survived horrific disfiguring burns but was given a second chance at life Tiny Dancer is the amazing true story of Zubaida Hasan (pronounced Zu-BAY-dah Ha-SAN), a nine-year-old girl from the remote deserts of Afghanistan who, in the summer of 2001, accidentally fell into a kerosene fire while heating water for a bath. Though she was horribly mutilated, her father refused to give up and exhaustively sought help to save his child. When an American Green Beret soldier by chance sees Zubaida and her father on the street, he decides he must get involved. With assistance from many members of the U.S. military, little Zubaida is given a second chance at life. She is flown to Los Angeles to begin a two-year journey through a series of surgeries performed by famed burn surgeon Dr. Peter Grossman. He and his wife, Rebecca, eventually take the child into their own home. This is a heartfelt and inspiring story of incredible courage equally matched by incredible kindness.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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