Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. Habibi: a novel. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 9780689801495

PLOT SUMMARY

Liyana is 14-years old when her native Palestinian father decides to relocate his family from the United States to Jerusalem. Even before the family’s departure from the states, Liyana receives a glimpse into her future. Her father refuses to let her take a pair of shorts that she loves, and most of their possessions are sold or left behind in storage. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, things are not quite as peaceful as Liyana’s father believed. Palestinians are still looked upon with distrust by Israelis, and friendships with Jews are culturally forbidden. Liyana’s family is large and unknown and impossible to understand unless her father is there to translate. When Liyana meets Omer, she realizes that she does not miss her home in the United States as much as she did, but when she discovers that her father has been arrested and jailed for defying Israeli soldiers, she discovers a new strength in herself and begins to face the future and the changes that will be required for her to be successful in her father’s country.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)

From the beginning of the story, the author immerses readers in the richness and tradition of the Palestinian culture. Although Liyana and her family have lived in the United States her entire life, their beliefs and traditions remain deeply rooted in their lives. When the time comes to transition to their new home, Liyana begins to understand the history that has kept her father bound to his homeland.

Although skin tone is not discussed in the story, Liyana does describe her mother’s skin as two shades lighter than Poppy’s and mentions that both she and her brother Rafik had inherited Poppy’s olive skin. Nye uses colorful language to describe the clothing worn by Liyana’s father’s family. “The women’s long dresses were made of thick fabrics, purple, gold, and navy blue, and stitched brightly with fabulous, complicated embroidery.” “Two of the older uncles, Zaki and Daoud, wore black-and white-checkered kaffiyehs on their heads….” It is descriptions such as this that let readers go beyond simply visiting Jerusalem and help them become part of the story, observing from the sidelines, but still completely involved.

Much of the story is told about mealtimes. In the story, as in the Arab culture, food is not only what is eaten to sustain life, but is prepared, served, and eaten in a way that celebrates the culture and traditions that are uniquely Middle Eastern. From lentils and saffron to lamb chunks and stuffed grape leaves, the family makes each meal an occasion for reconnecting and getting to know each other better.

Religious customs, although not an obvious focal point, are as important to the plotline as the characters and setting. Through Nye’s description and emotive narration, readers are convinced of religion as its own character in the novel. “A muezzin gave the last call to prayer of the day over a loudspeaker from the nearby mosque and all the relatives rose up in unison and turned their back on Liyana’s family. They 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.” Nye makes the point that the family did not mind that Liyana, Rafik and their parents were staring at them. This indicates that the religious demonstration is part of the family’s daily life. In addition to the religious practices displayed by Liyana’s Palestinian family, Liyana’s family attends a few celebrations and religious locations of their own in the course of the story. Liyana’s mother cries when the family visits the chapel of Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, and The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the entire family feels the joy of Christmas when they stand in line at the Church of the Nativity at midnight on Christmas Eve. Throughout the story, readers will notice Nye’s use of Arab forms of address—Liyana calls her father Poppy and her grandmother Sitti, similar to the American addresses Daddy and Grandma. Additionally, native language is used by all characters, infusing both Arabic and Israeli vocabulary into Liyana’s story.

Nye shares Liyana’s thoughts and feelings in a way that demonstrates respect for unknown customs and a willingness to draw new lines in dealing with others. Habibi is a novel ahead of its time, inspiring readers with hope for the future, and confidence in the young people that will write their own version of history as they grow.

REVIEW EXCERPTS 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. 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

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Look for these other books about Arab countries:

Ellis, Deborah. The breadwinner. ISBN 9780888994196

Nye, Naomi Shihab. The flag of childhood: poems of the Middle East. ISBN 9780689851728

Oppenheim, Shulamith Levey. The hundredth name. ISBN 978 9780613034937

Winter, Jeanette. The librarian of Basra: a true story from Iraq. ISBN 0152054456

Heide, Florence Parry and Judith Heide Gilliland. The day of Ahmed’s secret. ISBN 9780688088941

Clements, Andrew. 2002. Things not seen. New York: Philomel Books. ISBN 0399236260

PLOT SUMMARY

“It’s when I turn on the bathroom light and wipe the fog off the mirror to comb my hair. It’s what I see in the mirror. It’s what I don’t see.” With these words, Andrew Clements introduces us to Bobby Phillips, a fifteen-year old boy who wakes up one morning, and can’t see himself. When invisible Bobby literally runs into Alicia when he is leaving the library, he is fascinated by her face and her eyes, and later, by the fact that she is blind. Hoping that she proves trustworthy, Bobby shares his secret with Alicia, and they become friends who are both battling invisibility in different ways. This mix of science fiction and fantasy has a compelling plot that will engage readers from the first glimpse of Bobby in the mirror and will keep them reading until Bobby discovers why he is invisible and whether he will be that way for the rest of his life.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)

The character of Alicia in Things Not Seen is a blind teenage girl who was lost her sight when she fell out of bed one night. Alicia’s blindness is discussed openly and with sensitivity, helping readers understand Alicia’s frustration of trying to start her life anew and attempting to combat the stereotypes by which she is judged daily. Alicia uses a cane to help her get around, but is self-sufficient in many ways. When she meets Bobby, she expresses her anger with her mother for trying to protect her and for wanting to be involved in every part of her life. Although Alicia suffers a disability, she is a typical teenager who is trying to find a way to be visible in a world where invisibility descends on teenagers with frightening regularity.

Bobby’s invisibility is real, but, like Alicia, he found himself fighting invisibility in his regular world. Bobby’s parents are both extremely intelligent, and tend to leave him to his own devices as often as not. Not only does he feel that he is invisible to his parents, but he has a difficult time fitting in at the “smart school” in which his professor parents have him enrolled. When his parents finally accept his invisibility, they have a hard time accepting his seemingly newfound ability to express himself and his frustrations, as well as to do what he wants to do without consulting them. Bobby’s anger with his parents finally culminates when they refuse to believe that he can help discover not only what happened to him, but how to fix the situation. Bobby and Alicia, without their parents’ knowledge go on a quest to find the answers and, in the process, find out more about themselves than they knew.

With humor, excitement, and sensitivity, Clements gives readers an insight into the world of a very bright, beautiful, adventurous and courageous girl who just happens to be visually challenged, and her “normal” friend who finds himself in a strangely abnormal situation.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

Publisher’s Weekly The earnest and likable 15-year-old narrator is the principal thing not seen in Clements’s (Frindle; The Jacket) fast-paced novel, set in Chicago. As the book opens, the boy discovers that he has turned invisible overnight. Bobby breaks the news to his parents who, afraid of being hounded by the media, instruct him to share his dilemma with no one. But when Bobby ventures out of the house and visits the library, he meets Alicia, a blind girl to whom he confides his secret. Their blossoming friendship injects a double meaning into the book’s title. As preposterous as the teen’s predicament may be, the author spins a convincing and affecting story, giving Bobby’s feeling of helplessness and his frustration with his parents an achingly real edge.

School Library Journal. “I turn on the bathroom light and wipe the fog off the mirror to comb my hair.-I’m not there. That’s what I’m saying. I’m. Not. There.” Thus starts the adventure of Bobby Phillips, who wakes up one morning to find that somehow he has turned invisible. The 15-year-old and his parents live with the worry of what happens if they can’t figure out how to reverse his condition. With a nod in the direction of H. G. Wells’s Invisible Man, Clements allows readers to speculate what it would be like to be invisible. As they see Bobby deal with his situation, they also experience his fears of being alone, unable to talk to his friends, or to tell anyone for fear of the consequences. He reaches out to a blind girl, Alicia Van Dorn, and together they begin to fight back as best as they can.

CONNECTIONS

After reading Things Not Seen, readers can discuss feeling invisible even when everyone can see you. Readers can also talk about how their lives would change if they suddenly lost one of their senses.  

Look for these other books about living with blindness:

Moon, Nicola. Lucy’s picture. ISBN 9780803718333

Royston, Angela. Blindness. ISBN 9780431112237

Petrillo, Genevieve. Keep your ear on the ball. ISBN 9780884482963

Dorris, Michael. Sees behind trees. ISBN 9780786802241

Cohen, Miriam. See you tomorrow, Charles. ISBN 9780688018047

Richardson, Justin and Peter Parnell. 2005. And Tango makes three. Ill. by Henry Cole. New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0689878451

PLOT SUMMARY

At New York City’s Central Park Zoo, two penguins in the penguin exhibit spend a lot of time together, and bond to form a pair. When the other penguin pairs begin making nests and laying eggs, Roy and Silo built their own nest of stones and attempted to hatch a rock. Mr. Gramzay found an egg that belonged to another penguin pair that needed to be cared for and put it in Roy and Silo’s nest. Roy and Silo sat on the egg and took care of it. Finally, the egg hatched and Tango the penguin was born. Roy and Silo taught Tango everything that the other baby penguins knew, but Tango was different—she “was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies”. The soft, watercolor illustrations by Cole perfectly complement the story, and the expressions on the faces of the two quizzical penguins will amuse and delight readers, who will find themselves wishing for a field trip to visit Roy, Silo, and Tango—in “person”.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS (INCLUDING CULTURAL MARKERS)

Roy and Silo are chinstrap penguins that still live in the zoo in Central Park. In 1998, they discovered each other “and they have been a couple ever since”. The penguins are cuddly, and realistic enough to delight penguin lovers with their black and white feathers, waddly-walk, and inquiring expressions on their faces.

Richardson and Parnell introduce the story with a description of Central Park and the families that visit the zoo as well as those that live there. Most of the families described are traditional families, but “two penguins in the penguin house were a little bit different. Roy and Silo were both boys. But they did everything together.” In the story, it is just that simple to introduce a family that is a bit different. The description of Roy and Silo becoming partners and making a home together is handled with humor and understanding, encouraging readers to view the world of relationships without stereotypes and bias. Although Roy, Silo, and Tango are not exactly the average family, “they snuggled together and, like all the other penguins in the penguin house, and all the other animals in the zoo, and all the families in the big city around them, they went to sleep”.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

Publisher’s Weekly Tango has two daddies in this heartwarming tale, inspired by actual events in New York’s Central Park Zoo. Two male penguins, Roy and Silo, “did everything together. They bowed to each other…. They sang to each other. And swam together. Wherever Roy went, Silo went too…. Their keeper… thought to himself, `They must be in love.’ ” Cole’s (The Sissy Duckling) endearing watercolors follow the twosome as they frolic affectionately in several vignettes and then try tirelessly to start a family-first they build a stone nest and then they comically attempt to hatch a rock. Their expressive eyes capture a range of moods within uncluttered, pastel-hued scenes dominated by pale blue. When the keeper discovers an egg that needs tending, he gives it to Roy and Silo, who hatch and raise the female.

Kirkus Reviews. In this true, straightforwardly (so to speak) delivered tale, two male chinstrap penguins at New York City’s Central Park Zoo bond, build a nest and-thanks to a helping hand from an observant zookeeper-hatch and raise a penguin chick. Seeing that the penguins dubbed Roy and Silo “did everything together. They bowed to each other. And walked together. They sang to each other. And swam together,” their keeper, Mr. Gramzay, thinks, “They must be in love.” And so, when Roy and Silo copy the other penguin couples and build a nest of stones, it’s Gramzay who brings a neighboring couple’s second egg for them to tend, then names the resulting hatchling “Tango.”

CONNECTIONS

This story can be used as an introduction to a discussion about the varying types of families.  

Look for these other books about families:

Bryan, Jennifer. The different dragon. ISBN 9780967446868

Skutch, Robert. Who’s in a family? ISBN 9781883672133

Newman, Leslea. Heather has two mommies. ISBN 9781555835705

Willhoite, Michael. Daddy’s roommate. ISBN 9781555831189

Garden, Nancy. Molly’s family. ISBN 9780374350024