Playing Atari with Saddam Hussein

Video game villains and real-life dictators dominate daily life for eleven-year-old Ali Ali Fadhil has very simple likes and dislikes. It is 1991 in Iraq and all Ali wants to do is read his comics and play football and video games. But President Saddam Hussein has other plans. After he invades neighbouring Kuwait, the U.S. and their allies launch Operation Desert Storm to force him out. Over the next forty-three days, Ali and his family would survive bombings, food shortages and constant fear. Cinematic and timely, this is the story of how war changed one boy's destiny forever and would one day bring him face to face with Saddam himself at the UN trial.

Jennifer Roy is the author of 40 books, including the highly acclaimed Yellow Star, which won a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Award for Excellence in Children's Literature and a School Library Journal Best Book. She is also the author of Cordially Uninvited and Mindblind. Ali Fadhil grew up in Basra, Iraq, and became an interpreter during the trial of Saddam Hussein. He now lives in Dublin, Ohio.