Iranian-born author Daniel Nayeri has received a Michael L. Printz Award, a Newbery Honor, a Middle East Book Award, and a Walter Dean Myers Award Honor for his middle-grade novels Everything Sad Is Untrue and The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams. The Teacher of Nomad Land, winner of the 2025 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, is a tightly crafted odyssey about two siblings in World War II Iran.
After occupying British soldiers kill their father, 14-year-old Babak and nine-year-old Sana, now orphans, leave their hometown. A Nazi spy ostensibly searching for a 13-year-old Polish Jewish boy finds the siblings and draws them into a multifaceted conflict with no straightforward solutions. Nayeri's gifts for understatement, restraint, and split-second swings between humor and emotional devastation are on full display, and make for an affecting read. At times, the novel has the feel of a parable, but the specificity of Nayeri's characterizations and dialogue keep it grounded in "the land of the here and now." Surely Nayeri will someday publish a less-than-perfect novel--but he hasn't yet. --Stephanie Appell, freelance book reviewer