The House on Sun Street

September 1, 2023
Six-year-old Moji is living in Tehran when the Islamic Revolution begins. Her father, a retired soldier from the Shah's army, earned an exit visa to attend graduate school in the U.S., though bringing his wife and daughters was not so easy. After a few years, the family returns to a much-changed Iran. Women are veiled, pop culture has disappeared, and Moji's father is arrested. Moji nearly loses her opportunity to go to a good school because her favorite book is One Thousand and One Nights, but the school librarian comes to her defense. Moji is smart and curious and supported by loving family living together at her grandfather's house. In high school, her intellectual curiosity nearly gets her expelled, and again her librarian friend comes to her rescue while also introducing her to forbidden thoughts. The Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war are part of daily life, as are fear and concealment of one's true self. This is a coming-of-age story that has a lot to teach readers and will appeal to adults and teens alike.

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January 8, 2024
"How could I not remember?” Ghazirad writes in this culturally rich English debut that sets an emotional story of family against the ramifications of war. “How could I not remember those bloody days of revolution when he used to read that book to me?" Through the eyes of young Moji, who first appears at the age of six, Ghazirad introduces "the house on Sun Street,” the Tehran home of Moji’s grandparents and her family’s safe haven from the violence of the raging 1979 Islamic Revolution. Comforted, mesmerized, and emboldened by the stories her grandfather Agha Joon tells her from One Thousand and One Nights, Moji develops a deep love of literature, learning, and the art of survival.
Written with graceful power, Ghazirad's narrative fully immerses readers into Iranian culture with vivid details of the land, the people, and their lives as sirens wail, family members are arrested, and violence shakes the streets. Alive with lush everyday detail and the feeling of living against history itself, The House on Sun Street follows Moji into young adulthood and the wrenching changes and choices her family faces, as her father and uncle enlist in the war, leaving behind the women who love and depend on them for guidance, protection, and provisions. One pressing question: whether—and how—to leave for America. Depicting cultural differences Moji encounters during a short stay in Huntsville, Alabama, Ghazirad illustrates the displacement of families during war, the rights and lives of women in Iran, and the urgency of familial bonds and education, especially in times of grave peril.
Moji is an engaging character who finds solace and encouragement for her own development in the familiar spaces of family and between the pages of classic literature. This powerfully told story will appeal to readers of all ages and backgrounds due to its endearing protagonist, humane insights, and moving accounts of facing a “horribly changed homeland.”
Takeaway: An imaginative girl’s powerful account of life in Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
Comparable Titles: Mahbod Seraji's Rooftops of Tehran, Aisha Saeed's Amal Unbound.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Starred review from February 1, 2024
A girl experiences the Iranian Revolution, creeping repression, and war in Ghazirad's novel. The author focuses her story on Moji, a 6-year-old girl living in Tehran in 1978; her idyllic existence centers around her grandparents' Sun Street house, where her grandmother, Azra, cooks succulent meals and her grandfather, Agha Joon, gardens and reads her and her little sister, Mar Mar, tales from One Thousand and One Nights. Life is upended when the shah is overthrown and Ayatollah Khomeini establishes the Islamic Republic of Iran. Moji's father, an army officer who supported the shah, takes his wife and the children to America, where Baba, Maman, and the children endure anti-Iranian prejudice when members of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran are taken hostage. They return home after two years to find Iran profoundly changed: Many books and ideologies are now banned, and the struggle to keep every wisp of hair hidden beneath a headscarf becomes a preoccupation for Moji. Ensconced in her girls' school, Moji chafes at Islamic puritanism. She swipes volumes from a hidden cache of banned books and develops a crush on a female teacher, which prompts erotic impulses condemned as sinful in Khomeini's book of Islamic sex advice. Ghazirad's novel is a lyrical evocation of Iranian life, full of limpid detail: "Azra emptied the water that had dribbled in the bowl underneath the globe-shaped samovar and blew the blue flame inside its chimney through the gridded opening. White smoke funneled up the samovar's chimney and vanished in the air." The prose develops a searing emotional charge as Moji registers the disasters engulfing Iran. "Uncle Zabih trembled as he called Amir's name over and over again," she observes at a funeral for a teenaged cousin killed in battle. "Tears glistened on his cheeks in the sunshine. Maybe he hoped his son could hear and respond. But Amir was dead silent among the moaning women and stunned men staring at the fast-filling grave." The result is a heartbreaking coming-of-age novel, luminous but tinged with darkness. An absorbing, quietly intense saga of upheaval and war as seen through the eyes of a child.

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