46. The Kurdish Bike: A Novel by Alesa Lightbourne

read on my iPhone
2016, Alesa Lightbourne
324 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 5/25/18
Goodread/s rating:   4.4 - 126 ratings
My rating:  3
Contemporary Kurdistan

First line/s:  "Two women laugh exuberantly in a snapshot, their arms around each other, heads close together and aimed toward the camera."

My comments:  This feels like a self-published book, and reads like nonfiction.  There weren't enough details for me.  It was a total "telling," with no "showing."  I couldn't imagine the school, her apartment, the village, the kids.  No showing, only telling.  But was was told was really interesting, though I think it gave me an incomplete picture.  I wanted more, lots more.  Based on a true story and very readable, just lacking the details that I need to form a picture in my head.

Goodreads synopsis: “Courageous teachers wanted to rebuild war-torn nation.” 
          With her marriage over and life gone flat, Theresa Turner responds to an online ad, and lands at a school in Kurdish Iraq. Befriended by a widow in a nearby village, Theresa is embroiled in the joys and agonies of traditional Kurds, especially the women who survived Saddam’s genocide only to be crippled by age-old restrictions, brutality and honor killings. Theresa’s greatest challenge will be balancing respect for cultural values while trying to introduce more enlightened attitudes toward women — at the same time seeking new spiritual dimensions within herself.
 
          The Kurdish Bike is gripping, tender, wry and compassionate — an eye-opener into little-known customs in one of the world’s most explosive regions — a novel of love, betrayal and redemption.

SHORT STORIES - Triple Time - Anne Sanow

Drue Heniz Literature Prize 2009
2009 University of Pittsburgh Press

151 pgs.

Adult Fiction - 1980's Saudi Arabia

Finished

Goodreads rating: 3.87

My rating:    (5) Awesome  (4) Loved it  (3) Liked it   (2) It was okay  (1) Yuck

TPPL found it in Sedona

1st story:  "Pioneer" pgs. 1 -19
     A nine-year-old has accompanied his construction-worker dad and pregnant mom to a hot, boring village in the Saudi desert where they will spend at least two years.  It's still summer, he has nothing to do (their possessions have not yet arrived), and none of his family is happy.  The baby arrives - early.  The story gives a feel for this hot, depressing place with little going for it and seems somewhat pointless other than that.

Goodreads book summary:  For Jill, a young American living in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, life is in “a holding pattern” of long days in a restrictive place-“sandlocked nowhere,” as another expat calls it.  Others don't know how to leave, and try to adopt the country as their own.  And to those who were born there, the changes seem to come at warp speed: Thurayya, the daughter of a Bedouin chief, later finds herself living in a Riyadh high-rise where, she says, there are “worlds wound together with years.”
           The characters in the linked stories in Triple Time are living an uneasy mesh of two divergent cultures, in a place where tradition and progress are continually in flux. These are tales of confliction-of old and new, rich and poor, sexual repression and personal freedom. We experience a barren yet strangely beautiful landscape jolted by sleek glass apartment towers and opulent fountains. On the fringes of urbanity, Bedouins traverse the desert in search of the next watering hole.
           Beneath a surface of cultural upheaval, the stories hold deeper, more personal meanings. They tell of yearnings-for a time lost, for a homeland, for belonging, and for love. Anne Sanow reveals much about the culture, psyche, and essence of life in modern Saudi Arabia, where Saudis struggle to keep their traditions and foreigners muddle through in search of a quick buck or a last chance at making a life for themselves in a world that is quickly running out of hiding places.

50. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell - Nadia Hashimi

2014 William Morrow / Harper Collins
452 pgs.
Adult Realistic Fiction - switches between contemporary and historical/100 years ago
Finished Sat. 8/8/14
Goodreads rating:  4.28
My rating:   4.5 This was an outstanding book
TPPL
Setting: a village in Afghanistan, includes peeks at Kabul during both time periods depicted (1900 and 2007)

1st sentence/s: "Shahla stood by our front door, the bright green metal rusting on the edges.  She craned her neck. Parwin and I rounded the corner  and saw the relief in her eyes.  We couldn't be late again."

My comments:  I have to think really hard about rating this book.  I keep thinking about the last words I read in it, in the acknowledgement section by the author.  She says, "A special acknowledgement to all the daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and teachers of Afghanistan...."  However, other than the protagonists (and Rahima's immediate family), with only a few exceptions, the women depicted in the novel are hateful, vengeful, and mean. This includes mothers-in-law, grandmothers, sisters-in-law, and other wives who are also daughters, mothers, and aunts.

The story is about two different women, one living at the beginning of the 20th century, the other more contemporary, living at the beginning of the 21st.  Related by blood, both get the opportunity to "shed" their female personna for part of their lives and live a bit more freely as a male.  They both become wives and mothers, but not in the way most American women might think of becoming a wife and mother. The chapters alternate and it is not at all difficult to keep the stories or the people in each story separate.

The images left in my mind after reading this book will stay with me. I couldn't put this book down. I realize that Afghanistan's reality is incredibly different from mine, and this novel gave me added perspective.  So many questions are left, particularly about religion and the heavyhandedness some apply to the "rules" that go along with that religion....

Goodreads book summary:  Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel, The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.

In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.

But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-aunt, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.

Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?

17. The Tyrant's Daughter - J. C. Carleson

2014, Alfred A. Knopf

295 pgs.

YA CRF

Finished 3/19/2014

Goodreads Rating:  3.99

My Rating: Liked it (3)

TPPL

Contemporary Washington D.C. area

1^st sentence/s:  "My brother is the king of nowhere."

My comments:  Great premise, excellent research, believable characters. I liked it. However, it didn't grab me as I expected.

Goodreads Review:   From a former CIA officer comes the riveting account of a royal Middle Eastern family exiled to the American suburbs. 

          When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations? 
          J.C. Carleson delivers a fascinating account of a girl—and a country—on the brink, and a rare glimpse at the personal side of international politics.           *Bonus Backmatter includes a note about the author's CIA past, and a commentary by RAND researcher and president of ARCH International, Dr. Cheryl Benard. Recommendations for further reading are also included. 

MOVIE - The Attack

R (1:42)

Limited release 6/21/2013

Viewed with Sheila at the Loft on 8/22/2013

RT Critic: 91 Audience:  79

Cag:   2/it was okay 

In Hebrew with subtitles

Based on the book of the same title by Yasmina Khadra

Directed by Zlad Doueiri

Cohen Media Group

Rotten Tomatoes summary:  Amin Jaafari (Ali Suliman, Paradise Now) is an Israeli Palestinian surgeon, fully assimilated into Tel Aviv society. He has a loving wife, an exemplary career, and many Jewish friends. But his picture perfect life is turned upside down after a suicide bombing in a restaurant leaves nineteen dead, and the Israeli police inform him that his wife, Sihem (Reymonde Amsellem, Lebanon) who also died in the explosion, was responsible. Convinced of her innocence, Amin abandons the relative security of his adopted homeland and enters the Palestinian territories in pursuit of the truth. Once there, he finds himself in ever more dangerous places and situations. Determined, he presses on seeking answers to questions he never thought he would be asking.

My comments:  I loved the book - I read it when it first came out.  The movie left me with a totally different feeling.  At the end of the book, I think I understood how Jaafari felt.  Not at the end of the movie.  I can't understand his lack of conscience, it left me feeling empty and bereft.  It was a really tough movie, anyways.  

The Sky of Afghanistan - Ana A. de Eulate

Illustrated by Sonja Wimmer

2012 FSC, (all proceeds to Cometa Fdtn., wwww.fundacioncometa.org)

24 pages 

$15.95

TPPL

Goodreads rating: 3.60

My rating: 4

Endpapers: fluffy clouds on a brown paper-baggy paper showing fibers

Title Page: one kite, flying

Dedication:  "To the children who live in conflict zones, so that they can see their kite of PEACE flying high in the sky."

Illustrations: Beautiful.  They include subtle bits and pieces of Afghanistan - clothing - terrain - faces - children in daily life - simple drawings. They are done in browns with touches of color and fill the entire page - all are two-page spreads with the words in a cool font incorporated into the illustrations somewhere.

1^st line's:  "I look at the sky, I close my eyes, and my imagination begins to soar....

I fly between the clouds of the country i love: Afghanistan."

Ending:  "A place where harmony reigns, a place of togetherness...A place - please forgive me if my eyes fill with tears -- that leads us towards PEACE."

My Goodreads review:  "The sky can be full of kites, I think to myself, but it can also be full of dreams..."  This book is about the dreams a young Afghani girls has for peace in the country she loves.  It's more a piece of writing about hopes and dreams than a story, but that's more-than okay. It's really a simple wish, eh?  (And, I love the author's use of elipses!)

Goodreads summary:  Beautifully illustrated and undeniably moving, this is the story of a little Afghan girl’s dreams of peace. As her country is wracked by war, a girl’s imagination drifts toward the idea of peace for her people and for her country. Her powerful dreams soon take wing and fill the homes and hearts of those around her, uniting a people in their common desire for peace.

41. The Girls of Riyadh - Rajaa Alsanea

translated by Rajaa Alsanea and Marilyn Booth
for:  Adults (and YA's too)
Penguin Books, 2007 (originally published in Arabic in 2005)
paper $14.00
286 pgs.
Rating:  4

This is the story of four upper class Saudi girls and the customs and foibles they live with when it comes to dating (huh!), men, and marriage.  Even though I had some background, some pre-established knowledge, there were many eye-opening new facts to learn. It was written in an interesting way.  Supposedly, every week for a year or so, a "friend" of the four girls writes an email to a list of subscribers to uncover more and more of the girls' story. She gets quite a backlash - both good and bad - from different Saudis.  The book itself was very controversial in Saudi Arabia and other Arabic, Islamic countries.

Read no further unless you want spoilers.  The four friends:

Gamrah - first married, to a man who takes her to Chicago and goes out of his way to show his distaste for her.  Come to find out, he's had a loving relationship, but his parents would not allow him to marry her.  He continues this relationship, Gamrah gets purposely pregnant, and they divorce.  She is left bitter and angry.

Sadeem - becomes engaged to Wahleed, it seems to be a love match until she gives herself fully to him shortly before the actual marriage and he dumps her.  Then she meets Faras, an older-than-her politician and they are practically glued at the hip....until his family refuses to let him marry a "divorced" woman and forces him to marry another.

Michelle - half American, but fully a Saudi, since she's lived there through adolescence.  She falls in love with Faisal, but his parents have someone else in mind for him.  She eventually goes to the United Arab Emirates and becomes a producer.

Lamees - the most playful, flirtatious of the four, she knows how to have fun and finally, in medical school, sees the man she desires as a husband, plays her cards right, and follows the traditional path without too much glamour and fireworks. She was also the character that interested me the least.

MOVIE - Amreeka

Another good one!
Released in theaters 9-4-09
This was a free presentation as part of a special 10-city tour
PG-13 (1:32)
6-9-11 at the Loft with Sheila, Kate, Ronnie
RT:  87  cag:  90
Written and directed by Dherien Dabis
in English and Arabic with subtitles when needed

A Palestinian banker and her teenage son move to Illinois after it becomes more and more dangerous to live in Palestine.  Because of two checkpoints and huge walls, her 15 minute drive from their home in Bethlehem to work now takes 2 hours. They will live with her sister and brother-in-law, a doctor, and their three daughters.

Of course, it's not easy.  Bullies make fun of Fadi and confrontations escalate.  Muna can't find an administrative job, so takes a job at the local burger joint, pretending to her family that she is working at a bank.  But even as awful, unforeseen things happen to them, they make friends.  She is a bit overwieght but clever and has a sense of humor, so nothing that is thrown at her keeps her down for long.  And there are even some laughs along the way.

The families still miss Palestine.  They miss Arab food.  They are a family.  Good movie.

MOVIE - Incendies

Powerful - and a masterpiece of storytelling
Released 4-22-11
R (2:10)
5/29/11 at the Loft...alone
RT:  91  cag: 96 (yup, I liked it that much)
In French and Arabic with English subtitles
Director:  Denis Villeneuve (French Canadian)
based on Lebanese-born Canadian playright Wajdi Mouawad's play "Scorched"
Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film

I believe "Incendies" means "raging fires."  Fits.  And it's better not to know ahead of time what the plot is entirely about...I'd avoid the trailer and only skem through reviews before seeing.  I watched the trailer AFTERWARDS and was really, REALLY glad I hadn't seen it first.  The trailer gave away at least one surprise that you shouldn't know ahead of time.

Nawal Marwan has just died.  She leaves her twin children each a letter, Jeanne is to deliver her letter to her father and Simon is to deliver his to their brother. This is quite shocking and unbelievable, because they've always been told that their father was dead and they've never heard of any brother.  We accompany Jeanne as she travels from Canada to the mideast, where she begins to search for clues.  The film keeps flashing back to the past to Nawal and lets her, in this way, tell her story.  Telling any more would ruin it.

This was one excellent movie.  Horrifying. Sad.  Mesmerizing. What storytelling...going back in forth in time from mother to daughter and son.....a perfect weaving. A weaving with layers.

There's a very intersting review, particularly because it discusses the absence of an actual locale for the mideastern part of the story.  Apparently it was left ambiguous for a reason.  However, this article in The Yuppie Activist is quite interesting.  Also is one written by Chris Knipp on his blog.There are probably loads more, but these are the ones I found when looking for the locale of the movie.  And ofcourse there's always the IMBd review.

The Storytellers - Ted Lewin

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1998
32 pages
For grades 1-4
My rating: 4
Endpapers: The city of Fez, surrounded by palms and mountains.
There's a glossary of Arab words and pronounciations.

Set in the city of Fez in Morocco, this story leaves us with a wonderful sense of what it might be like there - so very different from what American kids might be used to -- mules pulling wagons on the skinny streets of the marketplace, craftsmen performing their tasks for all to see --- we smell the smells (some unpleasant) and see the sights. Beautiful carpets. A walled city. Moroccon dress. And we wait to discover where Abdul and his grandfather are going.

Abdul's grandfather is a storyteller. They let their white pigeon fly free, and when it returns it "brings a story from the sky." The gathering crowds drop coins onto the carpet where the storyteller and his grandson sit and listen attentively to the stories.

This is based on something Ted Lewin witnessed when he and his wife were on a trip to Fez.

This is a superb look into the eveyday lives of another culture in our world.

24. The Rug Merchant - Meg Mullins

2006
258 pgs.
Rating: 3/Mixed
$14.00

Ushman Khan has been in New York City for three years, establishing his very lucrative rug business. He thinks often of his home in Tabriz, Iran and waits for th day that his wife, Farak, can join him. She has stayed behind to take care of his invalid mother and find the very best rugs for Ushman to sell. He has not returned to Iran during this time, and he has heard rumors that Farak has been visited by a Turkish tailor. Through their eleven years of marriage, Farak has had five miscarriages, and it is a heavy weight on both of them. When Ushman discovers that Farak is pregnant and divorcing him to move to Istanbul, he crashes and almost burns. He continues with his business dealings, but life is joyless.

Woven throughout this narrative is the story of his relationship with Mrs. Roberts, a wealthy, older Manhattanit who has bought many carpets from him. They have a strange relationship, and it is this relationship that begins and ends the story. Full of metaphor, hidden meaning, and much sadness, Mullins has Ushman meet a 19-year old college freshman (half his age), and tells of the wiggle and dance they go through before becoming lovers. Stella has her own baggage to deal with, but her natural "Americanism" and her easy way with Ushman is the most charming part of the story.

This was sad, depressing, gave me a tiny look into another culture - a Moslem one at that - and into the heart and mind of a gentle man. I really can't say I liked the story. However, I couldn't put it down. I knew there was no happily ever after, and I think that Mullins ended the story beatifully. I'm glad I read it. I'm going to search the faces of mid-thirtyish MidEastern men now, looking for Usman.....

The Story of Queen Esther - Jenny Koralek

Illustrated by Grizelda Holderness
2009
Rating: 4
Endpapers: a swirl of dancers on red, by the edge of the sea. Very cool.

This is the ancient story that is commerated by the festival of Purim, a joyous celebration in the Jewish year. Since I'm not Jewish but work at a Hebrew day school, I'm a bit familiar with the outline of the story, but not the particulars. I've read that this version sanitizes the story quite a bit, and that a few of the illustratons have "technical" problems (ie: Jews never kneel to pray, but are depicted as doing so in the story). I actually love the illustrations. They cover the page from edge-to-edge in reds, blues, and browns and are quite lovely.

It's a "typical" bible story with greed, self-importance, death....no I'd better not go in that direction, but to be honest, it does contain all those elements. Koralek has omitted drunkeness and decadence and similar actualities, I'm sure.

This is the story of how Esther becomes a Persian queen, hides her Jewishness, and with the help of her cousing Mordecai, who helped raise her, saves the Jewish people from annhialation. You can look up the story on Wikpedia, which will tell it far better than I.

Clever Ali - Nancy Farmer

Illustrator: Gail de Marcken
For: Kids with the ability for sit for a longer read aloud
2006
Rating: 4.5
Endpapers: intricate brown & white scenes covering the page completely






Preface:
from In Praise of Books

A book is a garden you can hold in your hand,
An orchard you can take on your lap.

A book is a companion who sleeps
Only when you are asleep,
and speaks only when you wish him to

A book is a tree that lives long
And bears delicious and abundant fruit
That is easy to pick and perfectly ripe
At all tiimes of the year.

A book obeys you by night and by day,
Abroad and at home,
It has no need of sleep
And does not grow weary from sittting up.

-----Al-Jahiz
-----born in Basra in 776

The illustrations and text are all framed. de Marcken uses patterns from mosaics, woodwork, plaster, and marble from Cairo's mosques and Islamic antiquities. Calligraphic symbols are part of some of the framing. Very detailed, very lovely.

The story takes us into the two-wife household of the sultan's royal carrier pigeon keeper - a very important and prestigious job. Ali has four younger brothers and when he turns seven he moves from the women's part of the house to the men's part of the house. He also goes to work at the palace with his father to learn how to tend the pigeons. The story unfolds the same as one of Jahazarad's Arabian Night Tales would - with elements of magic and cruelty, where ingeniousness is needed to get out of a life-threatening jam. It's a long story, so well-suited for older readers and listeners.

Alia's Mission - Mark Alan Stamaty

Saving the Books of Iraq
Published: 2004
Rating: 5
Endpapers: red
Illustrations: Brown on cream

I'm still getting used to reading graphic novels - I realize I like the large, easy-to-read font in this one. And the illustrations show the magnitude of the job this brave woman took on. I really like Jeanette Winter's version, but I like the way Stamaty's version really makes the plight and the task overwhelmingly real.

Although Alia knows that war in Basra, Iraq is imminent, it's not until she arrives at her job as chief librarian at the Basra Centrl Library and sees armed soldiers (with an anti-aircraft weapon!) on the roof that she knows the library is in terrible danger. So, in a few fast-paced days, she and many helpers move over 30,000 books - by hand - before the library is destroyed. They're stored stacked everywhere in her own home and home of friends. Whatt a story!

The last page tells the history of other famous libraries in the middle east.

6. The Shadows of Ghadames - Joelle Stolz

Translated from French by Catherine Temerson
Published in French : 1999, Translated in: 2004
2005 Batchelder Award (Best Translation/Children's Book)
118 pgs.
Rating: 5
Finished: Jan. 25, 2009

This book took me to a place that I might have never known about....to a small city in the middle of the Sahara Desert in Libya, Africa, at the end of the 19th century. I went to the computer and looked up Ghadames and Libya to learn a little more. I knew about Ghadhafi, of course. But I didnt' know that Libya is Africa's fourth largest country (about the size of Alaska), that the famous Tripoli (from the Halls of Montezuma.....) is the capital, that it's a conservative Islamic country, and the women still cover themselves completely from head to toe.

The writiing in this short book is really quite lovely, I would have never guessed that it was translated. That means that Catherine Temeson deserves quite a bit of credit for a job well done. There is so much subtle description in the story that I could really, really picture it. The cover is really cool, and the red sketched border is apparently what they used to decorate the interior of their homes - I found some great photographs on websites.
Malika, a twelve-year-old girl, lives with her father, her mother, Meriem, her father's second wife, Bilkisu, and her half brother, Jasim.

"The rooftops of Ghadames are like a city above the city, an open, sunny town for women only, where they walk about, lead their own lives, visit one another, and never talk to men. Twenty feet below, the men walk in the cool shade of the alleyways, conduct business, and never talk to women. These two worlds, my mother often says, are as necessary and different as the sun and the moon. And the sun and the moon never meet, except at the beginning and end of the night."

Malika's father is a businessman who leads caravans across the Sahara to help supply the isolated town with the goods the people need to survive. She really loves her father, and he dotes on her. The story begins with his leaving on a journey, the meat of the story takes place now. A young man is badly injured trying to flee one of the religious clans that don't like his way of thinking. Bilkisu and Milake save him, hide him, protect him, and he, in turn, teaches Malika how to read and write. Somehow the story is not as significant as what is learned about the culture and way of life. I'm guessing it's pretty well researched, I hope it's an accurate portrayal, because it was incredibly interesting, and would be for kids, too. That the women live and cook and party and gossip and go to market completely and totally on the rooftops! ! ! ! Amazing - and I can totally picture it!

Four Feet, Two Sandals - Karen Lynn Williams & Khadra Mohammed

Illustrator: Doug Chayka
For: School age kids (to be able to understand refugee camps)
Published: Sept, 2007
Rating: 4
Read: Jan. 3, 2009
Endpapers: Dirt Brown

Lina and Feroza meet in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, after trekking from Afghanistan. When relief workers throw clothing from a truck, each girl finds half of a pair of sandals. Shy at first, they become friends, sharing the sandals, telling each other about their journeys, watching the boys getting lessons in the school tent, then trying out the letters and lessons in the sand for themselves..... A shalwar-kameez is mentioned, as is Ramadan, but this is the story of friendship and survival in a modern-day refugee camp.

Illustrations cover the entire page, no white edges or backgrounds, lots of browns and tans giving the story a real desert/sand/dirt/refugee feel.

This would be a good discussion-starter in class to get the kids thinking and talking about what's going on in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Silent Music - James Rumford

A Story of Baghdad
For: Kids
Published: 2008
Rating: 4.5
Read: Oct. 21, 2008
Endpapers: Dark Blue

Interestingly enough, James Rumford created the illustrations for this book in pencil and charcoal, then did all the enhancements on the computer. The book is filled with Arabic calligraphy, whether as a background embellishement or written boldly in black across the page..."the letters loop together and make beautiful shapes all by themselves." Arabic mosaics, Arabic designs, money, stamps, postmarks, motifs, are spread throughout the book so that the reader gets a wonderful mideastern feel from beginning to end. I love calligraphy, so the notion of creating this beautiful, flowing writing from right to left completely fascinates me.

The story is about Ali, a boy who loves to write and doodle, proudly practicing the calligraphy of his language as he continues to learn it. Although he loves to play soccer, dance, and listen to loud music like other kids, he is drawn to calligraphy, "I love to make the ink flow - from my pen stopping and starting, gliding and sweeping, leaping, dancing to the silent music in my head.". He tells about Yakut, the most famous calligrapher in the wold, who lived in the 13th century. The last picture is of Ali and his family, mom, dad, sister, grandad (cat and rabbit!), all in Iraqi garb and sitting on a bench with beautiful mosaics behind them. The entire books depicts Iraq and the middle east beautifully making this an expressive multi-cultural picture book on every level.

Addendum: January 24, 2009: I attended a five-hour workshop at the University of Arizona today, taught by Kathy Short and Seemi Raina. It was entitled MidEastern Culture Children's Literature. At the very beginning, Seemi, a doctoral candidate who came to the US eleven years ago from Pakistan, read this book aloud. Her lovely, lilting Urdu accent and added information made this a real treat. As the young boy is surrounded by fallling bombs, he calms himself by prcticing calligraphy..."I filled my mind with peace." At the conclusion of the day, Seemi wrote out each of our first and last names in Arabic calligraphy for us to keep. It was a fantastic five hours, including a wonderful lunch from Ali Baba restaurant.

Night of the Moon - Hena Khan

A Muslim Holiday Story
Illustrator: Julie Paschkis
For: Kids (and clueless adults)
Published: 2008
Rating: 5
Read: October, 2008 (during Ramadan!)
Endpapers: Blue/Aqua/Gold detail from Islamic tiles

Two wonderful things about this picture book - the illustrations and the information.

The illustrations. They remind me of batik, my very favorite fabric. The outline for each picture is done in an ivory/cream-colored line. How? It says they were "rendered in gouache and permanent masking medium on paper". I'm not sure what this means, but it sure is intriguing. And there's no negative space. None at all. Each illustration is framed by a shape; rectangles, tablets, mosque-shaped araches. And outside those frames, all the way to the edge of the page, is an Islamic tile motif...lots and lots of different designs in rich blues, aquas, turquoises. Camels and suns and leaves and flowers. Its almost like that thin ivory/cream line is the grout holding hundreds of pieces of ceramic together. Mmmmmm. Love it.

The information. The story is about Yasmeen, a Muslim girl living in the US. At the beginning of the month of Ramadan (the ninth month in the Muslim year) Mr. Sanchez, her teacher, introduces the holiday to his multi-racial class. Throughout the story we learn about fasting, special meals, partying, gift-giving, henna hand-painting, Eid, and how the moon and lunar calendar are the basis for the Muslim calendar.

I've been lucky enough to attend two different end-of-Ramadan feasts with Turkish friends. The food! The graciousness! Another wonderful culture to savor and enjoy. And this book celebrates this holiest of months in a gorgeous feast for the eyes. Great book.

39. A Bottle in the Gaza Sea - Valerie Zenatti

For: Young Adults
Pub: 2005
Translated from French: 2008
149 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Aug. 16, 2008

"My name is Tal Levine. I was born in TelAviv on the first day of July 1986, but I live here in Jerusalem. I know that everyone on the planet knows the name Jerusalem, and if there are extraterrestrials they've probably heard about it too; it's a city that creates quite a sitr."

This wasn't the "perfect" book (which one is?), but I still had to give it a 5. And what do I discuss first, the plot...with its timely tough-to-understand setting, the characters, or the writing? I guess it was the title and setting that caught my attention and prompted me tor read the book, but it was the writing that struck me most when I first started reading. Perhaps because it was written in French and translated into English? The language and word choices are lovely. Because there are places where it's not written in the way most teenagers I know would speak, it made me realize that some of them surely THINK this way. For example:

"I sat up. Immediately. Something had jabbed me viciously in the back. I can remember it now: I felt as if some huge injustice had been done to me, that I'd been cruelly attacked just as I was trying to forget myself in the sand - reducing myself to a body, its imprint on the ground, leaving the nausea and indigestion to hover overhead and be carried away on the wind."

Need I say more about the writing?

Contemporary Israel. Contemporary Palestine. Two teenagers from different worlds who live in places where we, as lucky Americans, can't even imagine. This book gives you a viewfinder, eyes to see what's really going on in this tiny strip of the world. Both protagonists have been raised by parents that yearn for peace. In Israel, the Levines have attended any and all peace rallies for many years. In Palestine, Naim's family has taught him to read Hebrew so that in the years to come, when they are hopeful for peace, he will be able to speak and read the language properly. Looking at the bombings, the terrorism, LIFE, from their point-of-view, is eye-opening.

Tal pours her heart out into a letter that she puts into a bottle destined for the the Gaza Sea. She pictures a 17-year old girl like herself finding the letter and responding. When a sarcastic, private young Palestinian man answers, a roller coaster relationship begins. Using the internet (and we even see how difficult and dangerous this is for the Palestinian) the story unfolds. And we get to see so much. Differences. Similarities. Hopes, desires, wishes. The view from each side.

My writing is as jumbled as my thoughts. Perhaps in a few days I'll come back and organize, add, make this more coherent. This was a very powerful book. I'm looking forward to sharing it with my Jewish middle schoolers and getting their take.