Playing Atari with Saddam Hussein
Based on a True Story

This book is a beautiful and quick read for a younger audience that would like to learn more about world events through the eyes of a peer. Ali tells the story of 1991 events with Iraq and Kuwait and later catches up to more relevant issues with Saddam. It was written to keep the attention of younge......more

When Ali was eleven, all he wanted to do was play soccer and video games. He had as normal a life as can be expected growing up in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, although he was bullied some for being half-Kurdish. Then, the country he most admires, the United States, is suddenly embroiled in a war with his......more

I had no idea what to expect with this book and ended up really enjoying it. I read it for the February #yabookchat discussion on Twitter. It tells the story of Ali Fadhil, the co-author of the book, who was a boy in Iraq during Desert Storm. This is his retelling of what it was like for those 40 da......more

Fadhil’s childhood in Iraq forms the basis of this dramatic fictionalized account of life during Operation Desert Storm, the 43-day war that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991.......more

While I was generally annoyed by how the actual atari playing was a plot point at the very beginning and very end of the story with nothing added throughout, I understand that the point was merely to showcase the things that were given up during war time only to be picked back up afterward. This is......more