Inclusive Literature

Habibi

Bibliography

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. HABIBI. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 0689825234

Summary

When Liyana’s father decides it is time for him to take his Arab-American family home to live in Palestine, Liyana’s heart is broken. Liyana, a fourteen year old Arab-American who has just had her first kiss. She has a comfortable life with her friends and her grandmother in St. Louis. Now she will be moving to a place were she can’t wear short shorts or kiss a boy in public. Throughout the story, Liyana begins to learn about the country and her father’s family. Liyana is reminded many times by her father of the war and the battle between the Arabs and Jews. When she meets Omer, a young Jewish male, the two become immediate friends. Although they are from different backgrounds, the two share a common bond. They both believe in peace. Liyana begins to settle into her new life.

Critical Analysis

An award winning author and poet, Naomi Shihab Nye has written a powerful novel of an Arab-American girl’s experience growing up as an immigrant in the Middle East.

Liyana, a fourteen year old girl is the main character in the story. She is very strong and says whatever she feels. When her father was arrested and put in jail, Liyana took a taxi to jail and demanded that the prison guards let her in to see her father. At her Armenian school, Liyana told her friend to say “no” to the directress who ordered her friend to remove a small clip from her hair. Liyana thought about everything. She wrote poems and enjoyed writing in her small blue notebooks. She wrote first lines for stories and included them as brief messages at the beginning of each chapter.

Liyana, an immigrant in a foreign country was very unsure about her family and their customs. When she first arrived in Palestine to meet her relatives, she was rather surprised to see how welcoming they were. Sitti, her grandmother, and all of her aunts and uncles greeted the family with hugs and kisses on the checks. Sitti “trilled and trilled and trilled. She shimmied her arms in the air like a Pentecostal preacher. The backs of her hands were tattooed with the dark blue shapes of flying birds.” Liyana did not understand Arab words, so her Poppy had to translate everything to Liyana, her brother Rafik, and their mother. Sitti wanted very much to get to know Liyana and to teach her Arab traditions, but Liyana was very withdrawn at first. She could not understand what her grandmother was saying and she couldn’t get use to the Arab ways. She longed for home and for someone to remember who she was.

Liyana opened up to Sitti and life in Palestine. She enjoyed walking the neighboring streets during her long lunch time and watching the tourist and store owners. Liyana made friends with Khaled and Nadine who lived in a refugee camp down the road. She even meet a Jewish boy named Omer that she feel in love with.

There were many cultural markers that made this book authentic. Religion and war both played an important part in this story. When Liyana’s family visited with Poppy’s family for the first time, “a muezzin gave the last call to prayer” and the family “unrolled small blue prayer rugs from a shelf, then knelt, stood, and knelt again, touching foreheads to the ground, saying their prayers in low voices.” While Poppy’s family was Muslim, Liyana’s family had never belonged to a church. Her mother said “they were a spiritual family, they just weren’t a traditionally religious one.” Omer, Liyana’s Jewish friend, introduced her to a few Jewish customs like shiva which is a time when the family mourns the dead by removing their shoes, not leaving the house, and covering the mirrors.

Other cultural markers include the Middle Eastern names like Rafik, Omer, Sitti, Khaled, Saba, and Amal. The family always ate big meals together around mattresses arrange in a circle on the floor. They ate olives, katayef, oranges, almonds, white cheese, falafel sandwiches, spinach pie, hummus, and flat bread. Nye used simple Arabic phrases throughout the story as Liyana learned to use Arabic. Some examples include: nos-nos/half-half, yimkin-maybe, Alham’ dul-Allah-Praise be to God, Wahad, nin-fadlack-one please, ana tayyib-I’m fine, shookran-thank you, and Habibi which means darling. The author does a great job describing what life is like in Palestine. She describes a tour the family took through Jerusalem. The family saw the Chapel of Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, Via Dolorosa, and the Wailing Wall were “Jew were tucking tiny notes and prayers into cracks between the stones.”

The conflict between the Arabs and the Jews is very important in the story. Liyana is told that when her Poppy was a young boy that he had a Jewish friend, but then the Arabs and Jews became at war with one another. Several events take place during the story that Liyana experiences. The first is when her grandmother’s house is destroyed by soldiers because the soldiers were searching for her distant son. Then there was a bombing in the Jewish market. The soldiers believed it was someone from the refugee camp and the soldiers shot Khalad by mistake. When Liyana’s father saw the attack, he tried to pull the soldiers away. Her father was taken to jail. Liyana had a hard time dealing with these issues, but when she became friends with Omer the two brought a shared sense of peace. This friendship was not accepted at first by her father, but when Omer traveled with Liyana’s family to West Bank to visit her grandmother Sitti, she welcomed him into her family.

Reviews

School Library Journal review: “An important first novel from a distinguished anthologist and poet. Nye introduces readers to unforgettable characters. The setting is both sensory and tangible: from the grandmother's village to a Bedouin camp. Above all, there is Jerusalem itself, where ancient tensions seep out of cracks and Liyana explores the streets practicing her Arabic vocabulary. Though the story begins at a leisurely pace, readers will be engaged by the characters, the romance, and the foreshadowed danger. Poetically imaged and leavened with humor, the story renders layered and complex history understandable through character and incident. Habibi succeeds in making the hope for peace compellingly personal and concrete...as long as individual citizens like Liyana's grandmother Sitti can say, "I never lost my peace inside."

Kirkus Reviews: “Liyana Abboud, 14, and her family make a tremendous adjustment when they move to Jerusalem from St. Louis. All she and her younger brother, Rafik, know of their Palestinian father's culture come from his reminiscences of growing up and the fighting they see on television. In Jerusalem, she is the only ``outsider'' at an Armenian school; her easygoing father, Poppy, finds himself having to remind her--often against his own common sense--of rules for ``appropriate'' behavior; and snug shops replace supermarket shopping--the malls of her upbringing are unheard of. Worst of all, Poppy is jailed for getting in the middle of a dispute between Israeli soldiers and a teenage refugee. In her first novel, Nye (with Paul Janeczko, I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You, 1996, etc.) shows all of the charms and flaws of the old city through unique, short-story-like chapters and poetic language. The sights, sounds, and smells of Jerusalem drift through the pages and readers glean a sense of current Palestinian-Israeli relations and the region's troubled history. 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

Other books written by Naomi Shihab Nye include:

Nye, Naomi Shihab. SITTI’S SECRET. ISBN 0689817061

Nye, Naomi Shihab. 19 VARIETIES OF GAZELLE: POEMS OF THE MIDDLE EAST. ISBN 0060097655

Nye, Naomi Shihab. GOING GOING. ISBN 0060293667

Nye, Naomi Shihab. HONEYBEE: POEMS & SHORT PROSE. ISBN 0060853905

Moses Goes to a Concert

Bibliography

Millman, Isaac. 1998. MOSES GOES TO A CONCERT. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374453667

Summary

Moses, a young deaf boy who loves to play his drums, takes a field trip with his classmates and his teacher Mr. Samuels to the young people’s concert. At the concert, the class watches the orchestra play their music. Mr. Samuels gives the students balloons to place on their laps so they can feel the vibration. Moses and his classmates get to meet the percussionist who is also deaf. She tells them how she became deaf after being sick when she was a little girl. She also tells the class that she worked hard at becoming a percussionist, and then invites the students to play the instruments. When Moses goes home that evening, he tells his parents about his field trip and that one day he would be a percussionist too.

Critical Analysis

Isaac Millman has created a wonderful story of a deaf boy’s first experience at a concert. Moses was not able to hear the music, but he was able to feel the vibrations. At home, Moses plays his own drum. Once he got to the concert, he was quite surprised to see that the percussionist was deaf too. After the concert, Mr. Samuel introduces the class to Ms Elwyn. When the students learned that she became deaf after an illness, they asked her what she did. Ms. Elwyn, the percussionist, tells the students, “I worked hard. My heart was set on becoming a percussionist and I did.” This encourages Moses to believe that he too could be a percussionist one day. The theme of determination will inspire many students to work hard for their dreams.

Many cultural markers were found throughout the story. The author begins the story with an author’s note and a diagram explaining what American Sign Language is and how to read the arrows and symbols displayed in the story. Throughout the book, Millman uses small boxes to show how to sign some of the words. The word is located at the bottom of the box with Moses showing the reader how to sign with his/her hands. Several full-page spreads of the percussionist and Moses signing are used to emphasis important parts of the story. The first is when Ms. Elwyn says, “I worked hard. My heart was set on becoming a percussionist and I did.” The other full page spread is at the end of the story when Moses tells his parents that he wants to be a percussionist. “When you set your mind to it, you can become anything you want when you grow up…A doctor, artist, teacher, lawyer, farmer, electrician, or actor. I want to become a percussionist.” The final page displays the alphabet with hand signs for each of the letters.

From the story, the reader is able to gather that people who are deaf can feel vibrations through their feet and hands. Balloons are also used on the lap to feel the music. Another important part of the story is when Ms. Elwyn tells the class that she became deaf after she was very sick as a child. This detail tells the reader that not all deaf people are born that way.

Millman’s full page illustrations are bright and colorful. The boxes used throughout the story emphasizing important phrases give the reader an opportunity to try making a few signs. Moses is a young little boy with glasses and a red baseball cap, and his classmates are from various cultures. All of the students are portrayed accurately.

Readers of all ages will enjoy reading this story, learn a few signs, and be inspired to set their minds to accomplish their goals.

Reviews

Booklist starred review: “Moses is deaf. When he plays on his drum, he can't hear the sounds, but he can feel the vibrations through his hands and through his bare feet. When he goes with his deaf classmates to a concert, they hold balloons in their laps to feel the vibrations. The percussionist in the orchestra is also deaf (she wears no shoes so that she can feel the vibrations through her stockinged feet), and after her wild, wonderful performance, she meets the deaf children, tells them her story (in ASL), and then allows them to try out all her instruments. With clear line-and-watercolor pictures, the precise hand shapes, movements, and facial expressions of ASL are a natural part of the story. Pictures at the bottom of the page show Moses signing the words, but when the percussionist tells her story, and when Moses tells his parents about his great time at the concert, the sign language is the action, and the written words are the captions. Deaf children will welcome this joyful story that talks, without condescension, about the fun they have.”

School Library Journal review: A group of deaf children is taken to a concert where the youngsters meet the percussionist, a friend of their teacher, and learn to their surprise that she is also deaf. She explains to Moses and his class how she became a percussionist even though she had lost her hearing and helps them understand that anything is possible with hard work and determination. She lets the children play on her instruments and feel the vibrations on balloons that their teacher has given them. Cheerful watercolor illustrations show the multiethnic children enjoying themselves at the concert, while smaller cartoon strips feature Moses's additional comments in sign language. A page displaying the manual alphabet and a conversation in sign language in which Moses tells his parents about his day enhance the upbeat story.

Connections

Other titles by this author include:

Millman, Isaac. 2000. MOSES GOES TO SCHOOL. ISBN 0374350698

Millman, Isaac. 2003. MOSES GOES TO THE CIRCUS. ISBN 0374350647

Millman, Isaac. 2004. MOSES SEES A PLAY. ISBN 0374350663

King and King

Bibliography

Haan, Linda de and Stern Nijland. 2000. KING AND KING. Berkley: Tricycle Press. ISBN 1582460612

Summary

After many years of ruling, the queen decides that her son the prince must get married and become King. The queen calls all of the available princesses from near and far, but none of them seem to be just right for the prince. When the two thought there wasn’t any hope, in walks Princess Madeleine and her brother, Prince Lee. The prince instantly falls in love with Prince Lee and the two get married. Finally, the queen has time for herself and the King and King take over the thrown.

Critical Analysis

Together, Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland have created a contemporary twist on a fairy tale story. Unlike most traditional fairy tale stories where the prince finds his princess, this prince finds his prince.

In this contemporary story, the prince must find a princess to marry so that his mother the queen can have some time for herself. After a full day the queen’s nagging, the prince finally agrees to find someone to marry. “Very well, Mother. I’ll marry. I must say, though, I’ve never cared much for princesses.” The queen doesn’t pay any attention to his comment and she calls all of the single princesses. After a long day of meeting with many princesses, the prince finally meets a Prince Lee and the two fall in love.

The bright watercolors and paper art are very entertaining. The illustrators have creatively displayed the crown kitty on every page. When the princesses come to the castle to see the prince, the crown kitty mocks the princess. For example, Princess Rahjmashputtin had long arms and legs. Crown kitty is placed in the background on stilts. The font was uniquely displayed on each page. The words moved across the pages with the art. It looks like the words “I’ve had enough!” are coming right out of the queen’s mouth. When the prince and Prince Lee meet for the first time, an arch of hearts dance from one prince to the other.

Reviews

Publishers Weekly reviewed: “Unfortunately, the multimedia collages are cluttered with clashing colors, amorphous paper shapes, scribbles of ink and bleary brushstrokes; the characters' features are indistinct and sometimes ugly. Despite its gleeful disruption of the boy-meets-girl formula, this alterna-tale is not the fairest of them all. For a visually appealing and more nuanced treatment of diversity in general, Kitty Crowther's recent Jack and Jim is a better choice.”

School Library Journal review: “Originally published in the Netherlands, this is a commendable fledgling effort with good intentions toward its subject matter. Unfortunately, though, the book is hobbled by thin characterization and ugly artwork; the homosexual prince comes across as fragile and languid, while the dour, matronly queen is a dead ringer for England's Victoria at her aesthetic worst. Some of the details in the artwork are interesting, including the "crown kitty" performing antics in the periphery. However, that isn't enough to compensate for page after page of cluttered, disjointed, ill-conceived art. The book does present same-sex marriage as a viable, acceptable way of life within an immediately recognizable narrative form, the fairy tale. However, those looking for picture books about alternative lifestyles may want to keep looking for a barrier-breaking classic on the subject.”

Connections

Other books about gay and lesbian families include:

Parnell, Peter. 2005. AND TANGO MAKES THREE. ISBN 0689878451

Willhoite, Michael. 1994. DADDY’S ROOMATE. ISBN 1555831184

Asian American Literature

The Earth Dragon Awakes: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906

Bibliography

Yep, Laurence. 2006. THE EARTH DRAGON AWAKES: THE SAN FRANCISO EARTHQUAKE OF 1906. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN0060275251

Summary

Set in San Francisco on the eve of April 17, 1906, Laurence Yep describes the events that will take place during the San Francisco earthquake. Henry, the son of a wealthy banker, and Chin, son of a Chinese immigrant who works for Henry’s father, describe the events that occur in alternating chapters.

Chin, a young Chinese immigrant has come to America with his father to earn money to send back to their family in China. His father, Ah Sing works for the Travis family. While his father is working in the home, Chin spends time with Henry. Henry has been teaching Chin to read with a hidden stash of “penny dreadfuls” that their parents disapprove of. Both boys dream of being a lawman like Marshal Earp instead of their boring fathers. But when the earthquake shakes and destroys San Francisco, the boys both see their fathers in a whole new light.

Critical Analysis

Yep does a beautiful job describing the events that occurred during the San Francisco earthquake in this historical fiction. While telling the story of two boys and their struggle to escape the earthquake and Great Fires, Yep provides numerous facts about the destruction that occurred.

Many cultural markers can be found throughout the story. Yep creatively describes the earthquake and the destruction of the fires using imagery. Yep begins the story, “It is early evening in San Francisco. No one knows about the danger below. Underneath their feet, the earth begins to stir.” When Chin and his father meet up with Ah Quon the butcher, he tells them that he has prayed that the Earth Dragon would remain quiet. Later in the story, Yep describes the Ham and Egg fire. “It rears up like a giant monster. A tongue of flame licks its fiery mouth…The Ham and Egg fire stretches one arm east and the other south. It will join its brothers.” When they arrived at the bay, a ferry set out with many passengers. Yep describes the fire, “It slithers across San Francisco like a dragon with red spines.”

Yep describes the differences between Chinatown and his village in China. “They are all so much taller, look so plain compared to the ones at home, and there are no tiled roofs or carved windows. But the Chinese have added signs and decorations to them. The American buildings look like they are wearing Chinese disguises.” Yep also includes that even though there are about ten thousand Chinese living in Chinatown, he is not able to understand many of them because they all have different dialects. Another marker explains the racism that was going on during this time. Yep describes how the Chinese were not allowed to camp on the same grounds as the Americans.

The reader is also provided other historical markers throughout the text. The reader is able to gather that during this period horses were used to pull wagons. The fire wagon was mentions several times. A fireman tried to get the attention of people by shouting through a megaphone.

Interwoven through the story were facts about earthquakes. Yep explains how the surface of the earth is like a pie crust floating on a hot core. He also provides footnotes about mechanics (blue-collar workers) and how “never had so many people left an American city in peacetime-until Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.” Yep also provided an authors note at the end of the story about the actual events that occurred, a list of references, and photographs of the destruction.

Reviews

School Library Journal review: “Yep looks at the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 from two points of view. Chin is a young Chinese immigrant whose father is a houseboy for a prominent banker and his family. He has become friendly with young Henry Travis, the banker's son, through their interest in low-brow but exciting penny dreadfuls. The stories depict heroic people doing heroic things and, while both boys appreciate their fathers, they certainly do not regard them as heroes. Not, that is, until the Earth Dragon roars into consciousness one spring morning, tearing the city asunder and making heroes out of otherwise ordinary men. Yep's research is exhaustive. He covers all the most significant repercussions of the event, its aftershocks, and days of devastating fires, and peppers the story with interesting true-to-life anecdotes.”

Booklist review: “On the evening of April 17, 1906, neither eight-year-old Henry nor his friend Ching is aware that the earth beneath their San Francisco homes is shifting. Devotees of "penny dreadfuls," both boys long for excitement, not their fathers' ordinary routine lives. When the earthquake shakes the city and a firestorm breaks out, Henry and his parents scramble in the chaos and battle the fire, but must ultimately evacuate their home. Ching and his father survive the collapse of their Chinatown tenement, and flee to the ferry through the debris and turmoil. In the midst of catastrophe, the boys realize that their fathers are real-life heroes. Henry and Ching's stories are told in alternating chapters with a few interruptions for the insertion of earthquake information.”

Connections

Other books written by Laurence Yep include:

Yep, Laurence. 1975. DRAGONWINGS. ISBN 0060267380

Yep, Laurence. 1993. DRAGON’S GATE. ISBN 0-06-022971-3

Yep, Laurence. 1997. THE DRAGON PRINCE. ISBN 0064435180

Tree of Cranes

Bibliography

Say, Allen. 1991. TREE OF CRANES. Ill by Allen Say. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 039552024X

Summary

When a young Japanese boy comes in from playing in the neighbor’s pond, he is sent to take a bath and then to bed because he has a cold. The boy observers his mother folding many origami paper cranes and later digging up a little pine tree from the yard. His mother explains that when she was a young girl, she lived in California and celebrated Christmas. Together, they placed the paper cranes and candles on the tree and wished for peace and quiet. The little boy promised he would never go to the pond again, and the next morning, the young boy woke up to a present under the tree.

Critical Analysis

In Say’s picture book, Tree of Cranes, Say shares a story of how a mother introduces her Japanese son to Christmas for the first time. The family lives in Japan, but when the mother was a small child, she lived in California. To introduce her son to this celebration, she uses origami paper to make many paper cranes.

Cultural markers found in this story include a description of the neighbor’s pond filled with bright colored carp. Say also used origami paper to make cranes. When the son asked why his mother was making cranes, she said she was going “to make a big wish.” The boy replied, “You’re going to fold a thousand cranes to make your wish come true?” Japanese legend promises that if you fold a thousand cranes then you would be granted a wish by a crane. When the boy was sent to bed, his mother made him rice gruel and served it with a sour plum, yellow radishes, and hot tea. Also, when his mother explains that presents are found under the tree, the young boy asks for a samurai kite. The next morning, the boy finds the kite under his tree.

Say’s illustrations are simple yet strong. The young boy has short black hair and fair skin. His mother is also has fair skin and wears her hair pulled back in a more traditional ponytail. While the mother wears traditional attire, the son wears shorts, a jacket, and scarf. The house has sliding doors and a tiled roof. There are few decorations in the house. One illustration shows the young boy sitting on his bed eating his rice gruel. The kite is a fierce warrior painted in bright red, black, and white.

Reviews

Publishers Weekly review: “Heedless of Mama's warnings, a Japanese boy cannot resist playing at an ice-cold pond "filled with carp of bright colors." When he comes home, he is immediately treated for a cold, with a hot bath and rice gruel. His mother's attitude chills him more than the weather, though; he cannot understand why she seems to be ignoring him. Hearing a noise in the garden, the boy spies Mama digging up the pine tree that was planted when he was born. She brings it inside and decorates it with paper cranes and candles. It is a Christmas tree, the first for the boy, and the first in many years for his mother, who tells her son she comes from "a warm place called Ca-li-for-ni-a." The story is a poignant one, illuminated with finely drawn illustrations reflecting the serenity of a Japanese home and the quiet love between mother and son.”

Kirkus review: “When the young Japanese narrator comes home with a cold after playing in a forbidden pond, his mother ``barely looks at him'' and puts him into a hot bath and then to bed without so much as a story. She's busy folding silver paper cranes; later, she brings in the little pine planted when the boy was born and decorates it with candles and the cranes, explaining for the first time how she celebrated Christmas in California, where she grew up. The boy is allowed to light the candles, and next day he receives a gift--a kite he especially wanted--for his first Christmas. Say's exquisitely designed illustrations are as elegant as those for The Boy of the Three-Year Nap (1988, Caldecott Honor). Geometric forms in the austere Japanese architecture provide a serene background for softer lines defining the appealing little boy and his pensive mother. As in Say's other books, there is an uncompromising chill here from parent to child: it's true that the boy has disobeyed, that his mother warms and feeds him, and that in the end they share the tree's beauty; still, her longing for ``peace and quiet'' seems exclusionary, and her cold uncommunicativeness while preparing the lovely tree is at odds with its message. Beautiful, honest, but disturbing. “

Connections

Other books written by Allen Say include:

Say, Allen. 1993. GRANDFATHER’S JOURNEY. ISBN 0395570352

Say, Allen. 1999. TEA WITH MILK. ISBN 0395904951

Say, Allen. 1990. EL CHINO. ISBN 0395520231