When Marjan, a thirteen-year-old girl with a disability, joins the Sultan’s harem in ancient Persia, she gathers for Shahrazad the stories which will save the queen’s life.
Middle East
Pancake Dreams
Stefan loves the way his grandmother makes pancakes, but she lives far from him. One day he has an idea on how to get some of his favorite treats.
The Treasures of Trinkamalee
With the background of The Arabian Nights, this book deals with themes of young men’s folly, greed, adventure, crime and punishment. An old man narrates how years earlier he and friends set out to see the world and to find riches to bring home.
Lydia, Queen Of Palestine
Ten-year-old Lydia describes her childhood escapades in pre-World War II Romania, her struggles to understand her parents’ divorce amid the chaos of the war, and her life on a kibbutz in Palestine. Based on the life of the Israeli poet Arianna Haran.
Samir And Yonatan
Samir, a Palestinian boy, is sent for surgery to an Israeli hospital where he has two otherworldly experiences, making friends with an Israeli boy, Yonatan, and traveling with him to Mars.
19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East
Nineteen poems about the Middle East and about being an Arab American living in the United States.
The Flag of Childhood: Poems from the Middle East
In this stirring anthology of sixty poems from the Middle East, Naomi Shihab Nye welcomes us to this lush, vivid world and beckons us to explore. Eloquent pieces from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere open windows into the hearts and souls of people we usually meet only on the nightly news. What we see through these windows is the love of family, friends, and for the Earth, the daily occurrences of life that touch us forever, the longing for a sense of place. What we learn is that beneath the veil of stereotypes, our human connections are stronger than our cultural differences.
Wishing Moon
After a fourteen-year-old orphan named Aminah comes to possess a magic lamp, the wishes granted her by the genie inside it allow her to alter her life by choosing prosperity, purpose, and romance.
If You Could Be My Friend: Letters Of Mervet Akram Sha’ban and Galit Fink
Contains the correspondence between two girls, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, from 1988 until their meeting in 1991 and includes a brief history of their two peoples. First translated by Ariane Elbaz (Hebr.) and Beatrice Khadige (Arab.).
Habibi
When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud and her family move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many changes and the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.
Featured in WOW Review Volume XII, Issue 1