by Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
News reports of global conflicts raise many questions and confusion for children who do not understand the history or broader context of these conflicts. Children’s books can provide children with perspectives on global conflicts, such as the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. This post highlights books that reflect Palestinian perspectives as part of a larger conversation in the field of the many perspectives, including Israeli voices, related to this conflict.
The Palestinian conflict is 70+ years-old and this region has been reflected in picturebooks and novels since at least the 1990s when Naomi Shihab Nye wrote Sitti’s Secrets (1994) a picturebook in which Mona, a young girl, visits her grandmother in Palestine and comes to love and appreciate her and the land which is so obscure. On Mona’s return to the U.S., she writes to the president pleading for peace in the region, “I vote for peace. My grandmother votes with me.” Many of the books about Palestine are, “of migration, loss, separation, and belonging from a personal point of view. Some take an individual point of view, where the narrator of the book may be the person who has experienced these emotions” (Evans, 2015, pp. 243). In Carmi’s Samir and Yonatan (2000), a Palestinian boy is hospitalized for surgery in an Israeli hospital and develops a friendship with a young Jewish boy, an unlikely friendship given Samir’s anger after his brother was killed by the Israeli military, but one that leads both boys to new understandings of the conflict. Both narratives point toward the issues that are still faced by people of that region, raising the question of why things have not improved and have only gotten worse over the decades.
A recent picturebook based on Palestinian memories is These Olive Trees: A Palestinian Family’s Story by Aya Ghanameh (2023). It is placed in 1967 Nablus, Palestine, where young Oraib loves the olive trees that grow outside her refugee camp. While she lives in the land of her people, she is a refugee and has rationed food and water and restrictions of movement, but still is connected to her roots and the hardy trees that reflect the resilience of her family and people. Olive trees become a reflection and symbol of this child and her people. Oraib and her mother pick the small fruits, and she eagerly stomps on them to release their golden oil. Olives have always tied Oraib’s family to the land, as she learns from the stories that her mother tells of a home before war. War has come to them once more, forcing them to flee. Even as her family is uprooted, Oraib plants an olive pit and makes a solemn promise to her beloved olive trees. In her action she suggests agency as she promises herself that she will see to it that their legacy lives on for generations to come through the growth of a resilient tree. Her promise is to return sometime in her future. She learns patience even at a young age when she could have been carefree and happy, but she is burdened with an unknown future and no idea where she is going and what is to become of her family.
Aya Ghanameh draws from the memories of her grandmother who lived through the 1967 war. Her strong narrative explores the Nakba, where multitudes of Palestinians were displaced, with no way of return. The author projects her love of the land and her people through bold colors and expressive art as she paints a saga of bitterness, anticipation and trust for an unrestricted and prosperous future where the right to return is granted. She uses clothing and patterns based in Palestinian cultures and represents them with respect. The expanding hands and arms of war in a double-page spread represent the reality of war getting closer to people living in unstable structures and canvas tents without strongly built walls and homes like those they observe in well-built communities just over the hills. Their insecurity is palpable visually. The visual narrative is much stronger than the verbal one within this text. Aya concludes the book with photographs and an author’s note that adds to the narrative.
Ghanameh is a Palestinian author and illustrator from Amman, Jordan. Her work centers around the voices of ordinary people in historical and political narratives. Her attention to details in the end papers of Palestinian traditional designs are especially significant. This is her debut picturebook, and she is inspired by the experiences of her family who cultivated her love of the land throughout her upbringing in exile. Having graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, she is currently based in New York City. The author can be accessed online at ayaghanameh.com or follow her on X/Twitter @ayaghanameh.
Later this month, I will continue my exploration of Palestine with more fiction and non-fiction picturebooks.
References:
Evans, J. (2015). Challenging and Controversial PictureBooks: Creative and critical responses to visual texts. Routledge.
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- Themes: Aya Ghanameh, Daniella Carmi, Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestine, Samir and Yonatan, Seemi Aziz, Sitti's Secrets, Those Olive Trees
- Descriptors: Books & Resources, WOW Currents