The Jube Dog Never Lies — Ramin Zahed

This unusual coming of age story is set in Tehran, right before and after the 1979 revolution, which replaced the ShahÃ,'s westernized regime with the rule of Moslem fundamentalists. The storyÃ,'s narrator is a 12-year-old boy with an overactive imagination, who is in love with all things American and is surrounded by tight-knit web of eccentric relatives. In his chaotic world, street dogs give profound advice; otherworldly jins co-exist with humans; and an ancient culture lives side by side with the daily rhythms of American pop songs and sitcoms.

Despite its exotic milieu, the characters and events of the book will seem strangely familiar to all of us who have lived through the difficult process of growing up. This may be an Iranian family, but readers everywhere will be able to identify with the narrator's rivalries with his brother, the summertime car trips, the painful pangs of first love, disastrous dinner parties at home, and the dark shadows that death casts on daily life.

The book also gives readers a colorful account of living through a difficult political climate through the eyes of a young boy; a perspective beyond what appears on TV news and daily headlines, and an interesting comment on the role of American pop culture in a Third World country.