Middle East

Black Bird, Blue Road

In this historical fantasy novel, praised as a “rich, omen-filled journey that powerfully shows love and its limits*” and “propulsive, wise, and heartbreaking,”** Ziva will do anything to save her twin brother Pesah from his illness–even facing the Angel of Death himself. From Sydney Taylor Honor winner and National Jewish Book Award finalist Sofiya Pasternack. Pesah has lived with leprosy for years, and the twins have spent most of that time working on a cure. Then Pesah has a vision: The Angel of Death will come for him on Rosh Hashanah, just one month away. So Ziva takes her brother and runs away to find doctors who can cure him. But when they meet and accidentally free a half-demon boy, he suggests paying his debt by leading them to the fabled city of Luz, where no one ever dies–the one place Pesah will be safe. They just need to run faster than The Angel of Death can fly… (*Publishers Weekly, starred review; **Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

Nour’s Secret Library

Forced to take shelter when their Syrian city is plagued with bombings, young Nour and her cousin begin to bravely build a secret underground library. Based on the author’s own life experience and inspired by a true story, Nour’s Secret Library is about the power of books to heal, transport and create safe spaces during difficult times. Illustrations by Romanian artist Vali Mintzi superimpose the colorful world the children construct over black-and-white charcoal depictions of the battered city.

The Monster In The Bathhouse

The bathhouse is always busy the day before Nowruz. Everyone wants to be clean for the new year! As three boys enjoy their day at the bathhouse with their fathers, they hear a strange sound and decide to investigate. There’s a big mess, and they hear the sound of someone—or something—large splashing in the baths. What could it be? An unruly guest? A four-legged intruder? Or perhaps…a monster?

Explore The Old City Of Aleppo: Come With Tamim To A World Heritage Site

Visit the Old City of Aleppo is a book for children as well as a book for adults who may choose to read aloud to a child. The narrative follows young Tamim and his father on their explorations of the Old City, pre civil war.

Beni’s War

In this sequel to The Six-Day Hero, by Tammar Stein, Beni is unhappy when his family moves from bustling Jerusalem to a remote moshav, a collective farm. There Beni makes a new friend, Sara, and new adversaries, Ori and Yoni. Beni’s older brother Motti, a soldier in the Israeli army, can back him up in a fight, but Beni knows that sometimes Motti must be away to fight for Israel. Everything changes as the quiet of the holy day of Yom Kippur is shattered with hundreds of artillery shells falling on the moshav. Egypt and Syria have attacked, and war has come to Israel once again. Motti must return to his unit, and Beni’s nemesis, Yoni, moves in with Beni’s family when his baby brother is injured. As the war continues and worries mount about the fates of Motti as well as Sara’s brother Yuval, Beni learns the importance of friendship, and being brave enough to act when the time comes.

…Too Far From Home

Meskerem was born in a small town in the Golan Heights of Israel, to an Ethiopian mother and an American father. Soon after Operation Solomon, when several thousand Ethiopian immigrants were brought to Israel, Meskerem’s parents decided to move to the center of the country, to the town of Herzelia. Meskerem comes face-to-face with the ignorance and prejudices of her new classmates, many of whom are meeting someone dark-skinned for the first time. With the help of her Ethiopian grandmother, who remained in Kazerin, Meskerem comes to terms with who she is and finds strength in belonging to three different cultures.

Vial Of Tears

Teenage sisters Samira and Rima aren’t exactly living the dream. Instead, they live with their maddeningly unreliable mother in a rundown trailer in Michigan. Dad’s dead, money’s tight, and Mom disappears for days at a time. So when Sam’s grandfather wills her the family valuables–a cache of Lebanese antiquities–she’s desperate enough to try pawning them before Mom can.
But she shouldn’t. Because one is cursed, forbidden, the burial coin of a forgotten god. Disturbing it condemns her and Rima to the Phoenician underworld, a place of wicked cities, burning cedar forests, poisoned feasts of milk and lemons, and an endless, windless ocean.
Nothing is what it seems. No one is who they say. And down here, the night never ends.
To get home–and keep her sister safe–Sam will have to outwit beautiful shapeshifters, pose as a royal bride, sail the darkest sea… and maybe kill the god of death himself.

Arab Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook

Award-winning writer and storyteller, Karim Alrawi, draws on his deep knowledge of Arab culture to create original stories that are a feast for young imaginations. Told with intriguing details, the tales take young readers on a delicious cultural journey and invite them to consider an Arab perspective. Each tale symbolically incorporates food and concludes with a traditional recipe, lovingly flavored with colorful folkloric illustrations, making this a literary banquet to savor with family and friends across generations time and again.