THE FLYING CARPET TO BAGHDAD
Author: Hala Jaber
Summary:
On the surface, Hala Baber had a rich and successful life. A Sunday Times correspondent for
the Middle East she lived an exciting and varied life and was married to an affectionate
and handsome English journalist husband. Beneath it all however she secretly longed
for a child -a longing that medically could not be fulfilled. Unable to contemplate
adoption proceedings, deliverance came through the most unlikely source -a trip to Baghdad
during the Iraqi war to find children affected by conflict for her latest assignment.
Here she met Zahra and Hawra two small girls in a Baghdad hospital whose immediate family
had beeen wiped out by a missile attack. Moved to tears by their predicament Baber
made a fateful decision. She vowed to help the two girls survive in any way possible -to
care for them and to ensure that they would always be loved. Inevitably this led
to a decision to adopt- but would she be able to sweep them away on a flying carpet out
of Baghdad? This is an intelligent and beautifully written memoir of one womans struggles
with the accidents of fate and an inspiring and moving true story.
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Book Reviews
REVIEW user: strawberry | date: 2010-07-21 04:44:59 | user rate: 
This book is worth every penny!!...It is beautifully written and very moving. This true personal story is highly informative of the suffering of Iraqi civilians and in particular women and children victims of the terrible War. The book is so intense, moving and touches the soul...highly recomended!!!!REVIEW user: jade | date: 2010-07-15 05:06:16 | user rate:
This is a very sentimental book that tells little about iraq and somehow doesn't ring true. why didn't this reporter ever write about these girls before? all too convenient that the granny doesnt let her adopt the child. i looked up the author and found Mediawatch of ABC australia had done a shocking expose of her reporting. there are much better books on Iraq like Dexter Filkins' Forever WarREVIEW user: flower | date: 2010-07-13 12:04:37 | user rate:
I found this an intensely moving account of one woman's personal experience of the Iraq War. As someone who feels I have watched the situation in Iraq unfold from the sidelines I was very grateful to read a book which took me on a very personal journey into the heart of the chaos that we have created. The writer frequently questions the ethics of being expected to cover the war in a way which will sell newspapers back home,and indeed the whole enterprise which brings her into these children's lives. But far from undermining her position, it is the very fact that her relationship with the two sisters develops inspite of its origins in a dubious newspaper story that gave me hope. Powerful, personal, courageous and beautifully written - I couldn't put this book down.