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Payment methods. World of Books USA. Visit store Contact. Popular categories from this store. See all. More to explore :. They are also Coptic Christians in a predominantly Muslim country and incredibly poor, especially in comparison to the wealthy tourists who visit the city. Another important part of their economy is maintaining pigs, a casualty of swine flu fears, which majorly impacted them.

All of these strands are present in the story but not as much as I would have liked. Actually I think I would have enjoyed a non-fiction examination of the Zabbaleen written by someone with the skill of Perera because I loved these themes and would like to be more informed about them. However there is also a story featuring main character Aaron, the titular glass collector who is drawn to the beauty of the glass. I don’t know, I just could not connect with this guy. He dreams of a better world, away from his cruel stepbrother and stepfather and starting a romantic relationship with the girl who tends the horses.

But he also steals from a shop-owner, lies, and runs away. I generally felt sympathetic toward him as his situation is awful but I was wondering how the story would go.

He was not enough to capture my attention nor did the other characters spark for me. Sometimes there were pages where nothing was really happening and the story just stalled. I did not get the feeling that there was an ending that the story was driving to; it was just meandering. One person found this helpful. Aaron, a member of Cairo’s Zabbaleen community, collects and recycles garbage for a living. He and other members of this minority religious community have collected Cairo’s garbage for decades, and their recycling methods have proven more efficient than those of the commercial garbage collectors.

However, they live on the edge, literally and figuratively, with lives characterized by extreme poverty and vulnerability to trauma. Aaron’s problems are no different and if anything, are compounded by having to live with a cruel stepbrother and stepfather.

Will his love of collecting glass and his dreams of finding love be enough to sustain him through the major setbacks he encounters? This gritty novel does an excellent job in introducing young adult readers to the nearly invisible livelihoods of Cairo’s “garbage people” during a period shortly before the Egyptian uprising. What the book may lack in terms of a fast-moving plot it makes up for with vivid descriptions of the sights, smells, and sensations of working with garbage and living in some of the world’s poorest slum conditions.

Has a book or movie ever so immersed you that any questions you might have about plot or character don’t enter your mind? At least not until the story is finished? And even then you still like it? Only as the end of her tale of fifteen-year-old Aaron drew near did I began to wonder about some of its flaws. Yet I still thoroughly enjoyed my glimpse into a world very different from mine.

For example, there isn’t much of a traditional plot. Aside from a love story, the bulk of the first half of the book is about the daily routines of Aaron and his family as they collect and sort through garbage, looking for items they can sell. Any events are only loosely connected. Aaron sees a vision of Saint Mary at a local hotel, a friend marries a hateful husband, a bomb kills two and destroys property, a presidential visit receives minimal attention, and a motorcycle accident injures Aaron’s girlfriend.

Any of these incidents could be removed with little impact. It’s not until Aaron’s family disown him for stealing perfume bottles from a local merchant that a real crisis emerges. There also isn’t much in the way of traditional character development, in that Aaron never really changes. For instance, there’s his theft of the perfume bottles. He begins with two and gradually adds more, and there’s no doubt would have continued this thievery if he hadn’t been caught and ostracized.

When his community accepts him again, Aaron only sometimes feels guilty about these actions. His family hates him without reason and then suddenly his brother loves him. Even his friends including girls with romantic intentions are hot and cold about their affection for him. Finally, there is the unevenness with which the story’s viewpoint is handled. Generally, the story is told in third-person limited, inside Aaron’s head.

Occasionally, Perera randomly shares glimpses into other characters, perhaps to create an understanding for how others behave around Aaron. For example, three-quarters into the book, she tells how Aaron’s brother feels and why. Unfortunately, it seems out of place this late into the book and succeeds only in disconnecting me from Aaron’s story. Despite these flaws, here are the reasons why I think The Glass Collector is worth seeking out. First, while it lacks a traditional plot, it doesn’t need one.

As fragmented as its scenes may be, they fit together like the panels of a quilt, to create an over all impression of the Zabbeleen community. At one point, Aaron must make a decision of whether to stay with his people or to escape to a cleaner, safer, and wealthier life. Part of what makes the dilemma so tough for him is that the community is essentially one big family. By the time he faces that decision I understand how he feels, because I’m sad to leave his world too when Perera’s novel ends.

Character development is a trickier issue. Yes, I wish Aaron had felt more remorse over his thievery. And the sudden changes in attitude of those around him remind me of It’s Okay Now by Gary Schdmit, which I loved until the end when I felt betrayed by the unjustified happily-ever-after conclusion.

The character issues pale, however, in contrast to being able to see inside the world of a culture previously unknown to me, and which, judging from everything I’ve read, seems to have been realistically portrayed. Although Perera isn’t from Egypt, she did visit the Zabbeleen and developed tremendous respect for them.

This shows through in her author’s note and in her vivid descriptions. As for the switching viewpoints, this flaw didn’t bother me until near the end. Even then, I still remained absorbed in Aaron’s story. The Glass Collector will pull you into a new world. And when you finally must depart from it you’ll have plenty to think about. Perera left me wanting to know more about the actual Zabbeleen, which to me is a mark of a winning book.

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Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness. Enhance your purchase. Fifteen-year-old Aaron lives amongst the rubbish piles in the slums of Cairo. His job? To collect broken glass. His life? His hope? To find a future he can believe in.

Today in Cairo, Egypt, there is a city within a city: a city filled with garbage–literally. As one of the Zabbaleen people, Aaron makes his living sorting through waste. When his family kicks him out, his only alternatives are to steal, beg, or take the most nightmarish garbage-collecting job of all. Previous page. Print length.

Albert Whitman Teen. Publication date. Grade level. Reading age. Lexile measure. See all details. Next page. Review “Perera takes teen readers into a new world in this often-eloquent novel A novel of hope and redemption in the most unlikely of settings.

Perera draws a vivid portrait of the community’s squalid living conditions A powerful rendering of human struggle, resilience, and hope. She worked as an English teacher in two secondary schools in London, and later became responsible for a unit for boys excluded from mainstream schools. She lives in Hampshire, England. Her first young adult novel was Guantanamo Boy. Read more. Tell the Publisher! I’d like to read this book on Kindle Don’t have a Kindle? Shop for global treasures with live virtual tours.

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Learning about other societies makes us culturally richer; this book accomplishes that and more. I will definitely recommend this to my literary friends. Last year I read Perera’s Guantanamo Boy and appreciated Perera’s skill in tackling such a prominent part of world politics when most YA shies away from that.

Thus I was excited to see another work from her, this time looking at the Zabbaleen people in Cairo, Egypt who collect the garbage of the city.

This is another timely topic as the book is set just before the Egyptian uprising of last year, overthrowing Hosni Mubarak. I’m not very familiar with Egypt so most everything that was discussed was brand-new to me. I did not know that the Zabbaleen were a community within Egypt to collect the discarded trash, sorting and recycling what is still usable far beyond the work of Western waste-collecting companies.

They are also Coptic Christians in a predominantly Muslim country and incredibly poor, especially in comparison to the wealthy tourists who visit the city. Another important part of their economy is maintaining pigs, a casualty of swine flu fears, which majorly impacted them.

All of these strands are present in the story but not as much as I would have liked. Actually I think I would have enjoyed a non-fiction examination of the Zabbaleen written by someone with the skill of Perera because I loved these themes and would like to be more informed about them. However there is also a story featuring main character Aaron, the titular glass collector who is drawn to the beauty of the glass. I don’t know, I just could not connect with this guy.

He dreams of a better world, away from his cruel stepbrother and stepfather and starting a romantic relationship with the girl who tends the horses. But he also steals from a shop-owner, lies, and runs away. I generally felt sympathetic toward him as his situation is awful but I was wondering how the story would go. He was not enough to capture my attention nor did the other characters spark for me.

Sometimes there were pages where nothing was really happening and the story just stalled. I did not get the feeling that there was an ending that the story was driving to; it was just meandering. One person found this helpful. Aaron, a member of Cairo’s Zabbaleen community, collects and recycles garbage for a living. He and other members of this minority religious community have collected Cairo’s garbage for decades, and their recycling methods have proven more efficient than those of the commercial garbage collectors.

However, they live on the edge, literally and figuratively, with lives characterized by extreme poverty and vulnerability to trauma.

Aaron’s problems are no different and if anything, are compounded by having to live with a cruel stepbrother and stepfather. Will his love of collecting glass and his dreams of finding love be enough to sustain him through the major setbacks he encounters? This gritty novel does an excellent job in introducing young adult readers to the nearly invisible livelihoods of Cairo’s “garbage people” during a period shortly before the Egyptian uprising. What the book may lack in terms of a fast-moving plot it makes up for with vivid descriptions of the sights, smells, and sensations of working with garbage and living in some of the world’s poorest slum conditions.

Has a book or movie ever so immersed you that any questions you might have about plot or character don’t enter your mind? At least not until the story is finished? And even then you still like it? Only as the end of her tale of fifteen-year-old Aaron drew near did I began to wonder about some of its flaws. Yet I still thoroughly enjoyed my glimpse into a world very different from mine.

For example, there isn’t much of a traditional plot. Aside from a love story, the bulk of the first half of the book is about the daily routines of Aaron and his family as they collect and sort through garbage, looking for items they can sell. Any events are only loosely connected. Aaron sees a vision of Saint Mary at a local hotel, a friend marries a hateful husband, a bomb kills two and destroys property, a presidential visit receives minimal attention, and a motorcycle accident injures Aaron’s girlfriend.

Any of these incidents could be removed with little impact. It’s not until Aaron’s family disown him for stealing perfume bottles from a local merchant that a real crisis emerges. There also isn’t much in the way of traditional character development, in that Aaron never really changes.

For instance, there’s his theft of the perfume bottles. He begins with two and gradually adds more, and there’s no doubt would have continued this thievery if he hadn’t been caught and ostracized. When his community accepts him again, Aaron only sometimes feels guilty about these actions.

His family hates him without reason and then suddenly his brother loves him. Even his friends including girls with romantic intentions are hot and cold about their affection for him. Finally, there is the unevenness with which the story’s viewpoint is handled. Generally, the story is told in third-person limited, inside Aaron’s head. Occasionally, Perera randomly shares glimpses into other characters, perhaps to create an understanding for how others behave around Aaron.

For example, three-quarters into the book, she tells how Aaron’s brother feels and why. Unfortunately, it seems out of place this late into the book and succeeds only in disconnecting me from Aaron’s story.

Despite these flaws, here are the reasons why I think The Glass Collector is worth seeking out. First, while it lacks a traditional plot, it doesn’t need one. As fragmented as its scenes may be, they fit together like the panels of a quilt, to create an over all impression of the Zabbeleen community.

At one point, Aaron must make a decision of whether to stay with his people or to escape to a cleaner, safer, and wealthier life. Part of what makes the dilemma so tough for him is that the community is essentially one big family. By the time he faces that decision I understand how he feels, because I’m sad to leave his world too when Perera’s novel ends. Character development is a trickier issue. Yes, I wish Aaron had felt more remorse over his thievery.