FernFolio

Fatimah is a young carpet weaver who lives and works in a small stone and tin shed behind the courtyard of her master’s big house in Lahore, Pakistan. Bonded to that master after her parents contracted a small debt to a local money lender, she has worked at her loom since she was five or six years old, longing for the day when the chalk marks on the slate above her head have all been erased and she can return home to her family. Fatimah and the dozen or so other young children work from dawn to dusk each day, with an hour’s break at mid day. They eat and sleep by their looms, and those who are slow and clumsy, who complain or argue, or who try to run away are chained to their looms or, far worse, thrown into the Tomb, an empty water cistern buried below ground. Fatimah and her fellow weavers forget the faces of their parents and siblings, and forget the names of their villages. They stop dreaming, stop anticipating a better future, and exist only in the harsh, monotonous present of their young lives.
Iqbal changes everything when he is brought by the master to the carpet factory and chained to the loom next to Fatimah. Unlike the other weavers, Iqbal is not afraid, and cannot be intimidated by the master’s threats. He tells the other children that the debts they are working off for their families will never be repaid; that the marks on the slates are never erased because, while they labour to make beautiful carpets for one rupee a day, their master charges them for room and board. He tells them stories of his family and his village, and, more importantly, of his plans for the future. Though some of the young weavers, rebuff him, afraid of the possibilities his words suggest, Fatimah and Iqbal become fast friends, talking quietly in the night of many things, including how they will go kite flying when they are free.
The visit of important foreign buyers to the carpet factory provokes a shocking act from Iqbal, one that gets him locked in the Tomb in the deadly heat of summer. Fatimah and the other weavers are forced to choose between personal safety and saving the life of their young friend. Their decision unites the children in a common purpose, and helps them to believe that, together, they might have sufficient power to change their lives for the better.
Iqbal is the fictionalized account of the life of Iqbal Masih who, in 1995, came to international attention when he travelled to Europe and the United States to publicize the plight of young carpet weavers working in illegal carpet factories in Pakistan. Beautifully told by Franceso D’Adamo, this story makes real the lives of these children. Appropriate for readers from Grade 5.
FernFolio Editor