LS 5653 - Culture 6- HABIBI

BIBLOGRAPHY

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. HABIBI. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN: 0-689-80149-1.

PLOT SUMMARY

Liyana is a young girl with one brother Rafik and her parents, Kamal and Susan. Her father is a doctor in the United States but grew up in Jerusalem. Liyana is doing just fine with her life and visiting with Peachy Helen, her maternal grandmother, when her father announces that they are all moving to Jerusalem. Liyana and Rafik and not pleased about leaving all of their friends and home and moving half way across the world. Dr. Abboud tells the family that he wanted to move back sooner but the “unrest” in the area was too great and not safe. It is now safe to move back. Upon arriving in Jerusalem Liyana is confused with meeting all of her father’s relatives and especially the appearance of Setti, her paternal grandmother, with her tattoos and shrill noise making. Rafik takes to the new surroundings better than Liyana. She does befriend a young boy named Omer. Omer happens to live on the other side of Jerusalem and is Jewish. This goes against the religious practices of her father’s family. Liyana grows and discovers many new things in her new world – a kiss, unrest, an unjust world, cruelty, and lack of acceptance.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This book was very interesting to read. I felt like I had to keep reading. There are no illustrations in the book except on the cover. You have to use your imagination from the text to create your own mental image of the landscapes, clothing and cities. This book tells the story of a young girl and her family relocating in to a politically charged city. Liyana is young and does not seem to understand the thousands of years of history of the city and how certain peoples do not get along. This would be a challenging text for young people as it does not just tell a story of a young girl but the political and militant state in which she lives. There is one interesting part when Omer comes with Liyana’s family to meet her Setti. Omer makes a comment that he didn’t know the land was so beautiful. It showed that even Omer had been told things that were not true of the city and its surroundings. The title of the story is translated as dear one or loved one or darling.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

Jane Addams Children’s Book Award

Publisher’s Weekly-“This soul-stirring novel about the Abbouds, an Arab American family, puts faces and names to the victims of violence and persecution in Jerusalem today. Believing the unstable situation in that conflict-ridden city has improved, 14-year-old Liyana's family moves from St. Louis, Mo., to her father's homeland. However, from the moment the Abbouds are stopped by Jewish customs agents at the airport, they face racial prejudice and discord.”

Children’s Literature-“In this first novel by poet Naomi Shihab Nye, the conflict between Arabs and Jews is vividly depicted through characters whom readers will admire and come to care about.”

VOYA – “This story is told mainly from sensitive, introspective Liyanna's point of view, with a few disrupting shifts to those of her parents, Rafik, and her grandmother.”

School Library Journal- “An important first novel from a distinguished anthologist and poet. When Liyana's doctor father, a native Palestinian, decides to move his contemporary Arab-American family back to Jerusalem from St. Louis, 14-year-old Liyana is unenthusiastic.”

Kirkus Reviews – “In the process, some of the passages become quite ponderous while the human story—Liyana's emotional adjustments in the later chapters and her American mother's reactions overall—fall away from the plot. However, Liyana's romance with an Israeli boy develops warmly, and readers are left with hope for change and peace as Liyana makes the city her very own.”

CONNECTIONS

This book contains so many different topics that can be drawn out into lessons: Jerusalem, religion, political unrest, youth, growing up, cultural differences, discovering new lands and foods and trying to conform. I would recommend this title for middle school and above. The political unrest in the novel may be advanced for younger readers.

Book cover image from Barnes & Noble.