Palestinian Childhoods

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat is the true story of the author's childhood. The author begins her memoir with an episode during her adolescence when she was detained by Israeli soldiers from returning to her home. The episode catapults her back to her life as a refugee during the Six-Day War in 1967. The story is eye-opening as it describes war through the experiences of a child.

I read this right after reading the fictional A Stone in My Hand by Cathryn Clinton. Tasting the Sky made Clinton's book much more real for me especially the different emotions displayed by the various characters when faced with life under Israeli rule. Malaak withdraws into silence and into the shadows of the wings of a tamed bird, her brother's anger explodes and her mother sees the humanity of the enemy and dismisses terrorism as a solution.

Teens may find in these books some understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is still so prevalent in Middle Eastern politics. Of course, I would recommend reading both sides of the story, since both of these books are told from the Palestinian point of view! Some suggestions from my "to read" list (so I can't personally recommend them) might be How to Ruin a Summer Vacation by Elkeles, Habibi by Nye, or Real Time by Kass.

Two from 2007 RI Teen Book Award Nominees

These two books have very little in common besides the fact that they were both nominees for the RI Teen Book Award in 2007. While they were both fun, and I would recommend them both to middle school students, neither one was perfect.

Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan was a beautifully written with almost poetic descriptions of Africa, but the end was a bit too predictable for me to consider it a great book. I loved the premise--a young orphaned girl in Africa is hijacked by a couple to pose as their daughter in an attempt to win back the good graces of the rich grandfather. It has all the trappings of an old-fashioned classic, but as I said, I guessed much of the ending about three quarters of the way through the story. That just left some of the details.

Confessions of a Closet Catholic by Sarah Darer Littman starts with quite a bang. The closet Catholic of the title is not Catholic at all, but Jewish! Again, what a great premise: what happens when a young Jewish girl decides to give up being Jewish for Lent? Justine is a excellent role model for middle school students who are asking themselves about their own identity. My biggest criticism is that the book gets slightly, and I mean slightly, preachy. But really, how can you avoid being preachy when you have a priest and a rabbi talking to a young girl exploring her faith?

2007 National Book Award Winner

Just finished Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and I can see why it has topped almost every "must read" list for 2007 (except for an ALA award...interesting). Humor, poignancy, devastating sadness mixed with hope all make this book very real to me. The main character Junior recounts his freshman year in high school through his sharpening talent as a cartoonist and his writing. Junior was born with multiple medical issues. Still, he grows up to be a very intelligent teenager who realizes that if continues with school on the Spokane Reservation where he lives, he will be trapped there forever. He opts to go to a "white" school where he is treated as an outsider because he is an Indian. On the reservation, he is considered a traitor. As he makes friends and moves through a year full of tragedies that would devastate most adults, he wrestles with the problem of who he is, a theme with which all young adults will be able to identify.

This book is definitely for young adults. Although the reading level is not demanding, it contains mature subject matter particularly Junior's obsession with "boners" and masturbation.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

I very much wanted to like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne, but I didn't. The premise was excellent: a naive nine year old boy moves from his beloved Berlin to a place he calls Out With, because his father has caught the eye of the Fury. The reader quickly realizes that the boy has moved to Auschwitz so his father can run the camp there for the Führer.

However, once that premise was established, the story wasn't very believable to me. The boy Bruno meets a Jewish boy through the wire, and for a year maintains a friendship with the boy. I just couldn't believe that over the course of a year that no guard noticed these two boys meeting and talking. I definitely did not believe the ending. Without giving it away, I wanted to know why if it was so easy for Bruno to get into the camp, why none of the Jews were able to get out of it.

There are much better books on the Holocaust out there, read those instead. Try Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman, some of the original graphic novels, or Friedrich or I Was There by Hans Peter Richter or The Diary of Anne Frank.