An amazing story of wishes and their complications, woven with social and economic implications of wishes being available yet valuable. Characters areAn amazing story of wishes and their complications, woven with social and economic implications of wishes being available yet valuable. Characters are richly human, imperfect yet likeable sometimes almost despite themselves. The art has deep rich colors, generous detail, and both a darkness and sometimes a warmth....more
An often painful, sometimes dryly humorous story of Muslim experiences in the Arab Muslim world and as immigrants or children of immigrants to the UniAn often painful, sometimes dryly humorous story of Muslim experiences in the Arab Muslim world and as immigrants or children of immigrants to the United States. The four main characters go through a fair amount of travails--two far more than others, but then the book makes the point (among others) that life often isn't fair and that virtue and good intentions are often not rewarded. Other elements of the story? Grab happiness where you can, see humor and good in what you can, trust is often misplaced, and family can be annoying to seriously abusive but is still family.
Book Content warnings: brief and non-explicit but multiple descriptions of physical abuse and torture. Characters have premarital sex but there's no explicit descriptions.
I'm white, Christian, and US-born so I can't vouch for authenticity of the characters but none of the major ones seem stereotypical.
Recommended for fans of realistic fiction that embodies the messiness, unfairness, and occasional happiness and love in real life; those who want to read own-voices fiction by a Muslim man. ...more
A wonderful novel of an ordinary young girl from Syria who travels to the US to live there with her pregnant mother "for safety, for a while," away frA wonderful novel of an ordinary young girl from Syria who travels to the US to live there with her pregnant mother "for safety, for a while," away from her beloved father and brother. Jude's story is told in an age-appropriate way for fifth and sixth graders with both the fear and the joys she's experienced in Syria and her welter of experiences and emotions in the US living with relatives she never met before. There's a lot about identity, discrimination, developing friendships and community, moving into adolescence (complete with a wonderful first-menstruation passage), and simply being human.
Highly recommended to middle schoolers (and older people--I'm middle aged!) of any ethnicity or gender. ...more
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