Habibi

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. Habibi: A novel. Simon and Schuster for Young Readers: New York. ISBN 0689801491

PLOT SUMMARY:
Fourteen year old Liyana Aboud and her brother Rafik, are transplanted from their American home in St. Louis, Missouri to Jerusalem, her father’s hometown. Liyana and her brother is American on their mother’s side and Arabian on their father’s side. Liyana feels more American and has a hard time adjusting to life in Jerusalem. They meet their grandmother, or sitti, and relatives for the first time. Sitti speaks only Arabic, but communicates without words as grandmothers often do. The family soon learns that Jerusalem is still a troubled country as they try to adjust to their new life.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Identification of specific culture is evident in the text. Several cultural markers are interspersed in the text, such as, Liyana’s mother cooking with a “skillet of olive oil with crumbles of garlic and pine nuts” and her father “lifting his nose to the air saying, “There it is there’s my country.” Liyana’s father remarking that Liyana would not be needing to pack her shorts as “Arab women don’t wear shorts.”. Even a friend of Liyana remarks that it must be a treat to be moving to “Jesus’s hometown” and Liyana thinking that she “didn’t think of it that way. She thought of it as her father’s hometown.”

In Jerusalem, Liyana meets her grandmother, Sitti, who is described as having a rugged face and dark blue shapes of flying birds tattoed on the backs of her hands. When Sitti “rolled her tongue high up in her mouth, and began trilling wildly, Liyana’s father explained that this was the traditional cry used to announce weddings and funerals. All the womenfolk are wearing long dresses with bright embroidery. The older women had long white scarves draped and knotted over their heads and the men were all wearing dull grey and black suits with black and white checkered kaffiyehs on their heads.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S):

Review from KIRKUS REVIEWS: “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.”

Review from BOOKLIST: “What is it like to be young in Palestine today? That is the focus of this stirring docunovel, which breaks new ground in YA fiction. Liyana Abboud, 14, moves with her family from St. Louis to Jerusalem. For her physician father, it is going home to where he was born and educated. To Liyana, her younger brother, and her American mother, it is a huge upheaval. At first Liyana misses the U.S., can't speak the languages, and feels uncertain at school, "tipped between" the cultures”

Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “An important first novel from a distinguished anthologist and poet. When Liyana's doctor father, a native Palestinian, decides to move his contemporary Arab-American family back to Jerusalem from St. Louis, 14-year-old Liyana is unenthusiastic. Arriving in Jerusalem, the girl and her family are gathered in by their colorful, warmhearted Palestinian relatives and immersed in a culture where only tourists wear shorts and there is a prohibition against boy/girl relationships.”

CONNECTIONS
Activities
* Use for lessons on identifying plot, theme, setting, characters.
* Create a timeline of Liyana’s journey to Jerusalem.