‘Kept me turning pages and holding my breath.an amazing story that me and all of my friends love. ‘An important, eye-opening book.’ Deborah Ellis This compelling novel by one of Australia’s best-loved children’s authors is based on the true story of one girl’s voyage to Australia with her family. Will they ever be reunited with their father, will they ever find a home? Months go by, months of waiting, months of dread.

Mahtab and her family are forced to leave their home in Herat and journey secretly through the rocky mountains to Pakistan and from there to faraway Australia. She was just a speck of dirt on the floor, drifting through the gap between the boards, falling to the ground.

She felt hungry–for water, for her father, for her grandmother, her aunts and uncles, for the trees in the back yard, the cabinet on the wall, the silver and glass objects so lovingly collected, for her mountains, the jagged peaks that cut the sky. And yet, this is also sadly a very familiar tale in our contemporary world of questionable wars and the countless innocent victims who must risk everything for survival.Mahtab was empty. In the afterword, award-winning Australian author Libby Gleeson recalls that she was introduced to a group of refugee girls in a Sydney high school in 2004: “Their stories of persecution and fear in their own countries and their escape to Australia were so compelling that I felt I had to write about that experience.” She stresses, however, that this is a novel, not a biography. Mahtab’s Story is inspired by a true story, the book’s cover reveals. Days and weeks become many, many months … the younger children begin to wonder if they can remember their father’s face … and even Mahtab begins to doubt that the family will ever be safely reunited again. Mahtab’s Story written by Libby Gleeson is based on by true events as the main character experiences of Overcoming Obstacles.

They must patiently wait, hidden, desperate, and unsure of their tenuous future. Mahtab’s Story explores Overcoming Obstacles through the character’s occasions, such as (1) Mahtab being responsible in taking care and safeguarding her more youthful siblings, (2). There the father must leave his family behind, traveling alone to Australia where he hopes he will be able to prepare a secure new life for his wife and children. Mahtab, her mother, and her two younger siblings begin their frightening journey hidden in the back of a truck, while her father rides in the front, bribing officials when necessary to get the family safely to Pakistan. Now Mahtab and her family must leave her beloved grandmother and the rest of the extended family in search of survival and freedom. Her best friend has already left without saying goodbye, hoping to find refuge somewhere in Iran. When 12-year-old Mahtab’s father returns home with obvious signs of torture, and her grandfather is forever lost, her family knows it can no longer live in Taliban-controlled Herat, Afghanistan.

Mahtab's Story by Libby Gleeson