THE STRONGEST HEART

A 13-year-old boy struggles with the pain, anger, and sadness of living with his father, who struggles with mental illness.

Mohammad Mirza and his abbu, Mumtaz, move from Queens to Houston to stay with Naila Phupo, Abbu’s widowed sister, and her son, Rayyan—Abbu can’t keep a job, and they have nowhere to live. Mo’s mother, Becky Eckert, an engineer and UNESCO fellow who’s cued white, is away working in a refugee camp in Greece for two years. Abbu, who’s Pakistani American, has paranoid schizophrenia; life has been difficult for Mo, with Abbu’s raging episodes and his parents’ constant arguments. In Texas, Mo grows close to Rayyan, who’s also 13, and his devoutly Muslim aunt, who cares for him attentively. Mo loves desi folktales (which are woven into the book), learning, music, and art, but he acts tough to defend his soft interior against more pain. He harbors deep anger toward his father and longs for his mother, whom he connects with on occasional video calls. Eventually Mo must decide: Can he change the narratives he’s long held about his life, himself, and Abbu? The story is engrossing, populated with appealing, well-rounded main and supporting characters. The portrayal of serious mental illness and the complex emotions of a child whose parent suffers from it are realistic, eye-opening, and moving.

An authentically textured account of a young teen coping with a parent’s mental illness.