Adapted from the adult memoir, this gripping story follows one boy's journey into young adulthood and offers an intimate account of modern immigration. Abdi Nor Iftin grew up amidst a blend of cultures, far from the United States. At home in Somalia, his mother entertained him with vivid folktales and bold stories detailing her rural, nomadic upbringing. As he grew older, he spent his days following his father, a basketball player, through the bustling...
"The acclaimed, award-winning novelist--author of The Moor's Account and The Other Americans--now gives us a bracingly personal work of nonfiction that is concerned with the experiences of "conditional citizens." What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration...
In a world inspired by ancient Arabia, seventeen-year-old huntress Zafira must disguise herself as a man to seek a lost artifact that could return magic to her cursed world.
"Nahr shares her life story from an Israeli solitary-confinement cell. As a young woman, she dreamed of marriage and modern appliances, but found herself a jilted bride, struggling with displacement, refugeehood, abandonment, and sexual exploitation. A foul-mouthed critic and passionate dancer, Nahr finally returns to Palestine, where she is transformed by the power of her roots, literature, and love. There, she reemerges a radical political thinker...
"From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, author of The Moor's Account--a timely and powerful new novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant that is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture. Nora Guerraoui, a jazz composer, returns home to a small town in the Mojave after hearing that her father, owner of a popular restaurant there, has been killed in a...
"An intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar-the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women, elected to Congress. Ilhan Omar was only eight years old when war broke out in Somalia. The youngest of seven children, her mother had died while Ilhan was still a little girl. She was being raised by her father and grandfather when armed gunmen attacked their compound and the family decided...
"Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian -- half, his mom's side -- and his first ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder....
"Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself. Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life...
"A gorgeously written, hopeful middle grade novel in verse about a young girl who must leave Syria to move to the United States, perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Aisha Saeed. Jude never thought she'd be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America...
"A bracingly immediate memoir by a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, Brothers of the Gun is an intimate lens on the century's bloodiest conflict and a profound meditation on kinship, home, and freedom." -- Amazon.com.
"In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends--fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq--joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm-in-arm they marched, poured...
"A powerful novel about two Egyptian sisters--their divergent fates and the secrets of one family Sisters Rose and Gameela Gubran could not have been more different. Rose, an Egyptologist, married an American journalist and immigrated to New York City, where she works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gameela, a devout Muslim since her teenage years, stayed in Cairo. During the aftermath of Egypt's revolution, Gameela is killed in a suicide bombing....
Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother's ghost has begun to visit him each evening. As his grandmother's sole caretaker, he spends his days cooped up in their apartment, avoiding his neighborhood masjid, his estranged sister, and even his best friend (who also happens to be his longtime crush)....
"During a snowy Cleveland February, newlyweds Muneer and Saeedah are starting their lives in America and expecting their first child. But Muneer harbors a secret: the word divorce has begun whispering itself in his ear. Soon, their marriage will end, and Muneer will return to Saudi Arabia, while Saeedah remains in Cleveland with their daughter, Hanadi. The more time she shares with her daughter, the more Saeedah wants to keep her close, and before...
An award-winning Iraqi writer creates a new world for himself in Seattle in search of lost love. As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It's love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society's rejection and Morise's return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself....
"A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home"--
"Hadi and Sama are a young Syrian couple in the throes of new love, building a life in the country that brought them together. They'd met in Cambridge, Massachusetts: he, a shell-shocked refugee of a bloody civil war; she, a passionate dreamer who'd come to America years earlier in search of new horizons. Now, they giddily await the birth of their son, a boy whose native language would be freedom and belonging. When Sama is five months pregnant, Hadi's...
While her mother is out of town, sixteen-year-old Taliah accompanies her estranged father--a famous rock star who one day appears on her doorstep--to Oak Falls, Indiana, to meet his dying father and the rest of his family, and on the way, Taliah learns about how her parents met and separated, her mother's experience as a Jordanian immigrant, and her own ability to accept change and open up to others.
From Bassem Youssef, a.k.a. The Jon Stewart of the Arab World, comes a hilarious and heartfelt story about prejudice, friendship, empathy, and courage. Nadia loves fun facts. Here are a few about her: - She collects bobbleheads -- she has 77 so far. - She moved from Egypt to America when she was six years old. - The hippo amulet she wears is ancient...as in it's literally from ancient Egypt. - She's going to win the contest to design a new exhibit...
Eight-year-old Aref is excited to reunite with his father in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he will start a new school, and while Aref misses his grandfather, his Sidi, he knows that his home in Oman will always be waiting for him.
