1. Bibliography
Nye, Naomi Shihab, 1997. Habibi. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-689-80149-1
2. Plot Summary
14-year-old Liyana Abboud was born and raised in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Kamal; called Poppy by Liyana and her brother Rafik, is a Palestinian from Jerusalem who came to American 20 years earlier to study medicine and escape the ongoing war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He remained in the U.S. after falling in love with Liyana’s mother, Susan, and starting a family. However, Poppy feels the tensions in the West Bank have lessened and it is time for the family to move to Jerusalem and meet the Arab side of the family they have never known. And so, knowing no Arabic and with overwhelming reluctance, Liyana boards a plane in American, and lands several hours later on the other side of the world. The Abboud family soon discovers relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians remain very tense. Everything is so strange Liyana feels as if she living “on the moon,” as Rafik put it.
3. Critical Analysis
Winner of the Jane Adams Children's Book Award Habibi is the story of a typical teenager, 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, living in America. But, when she arrives in her father’s homeland, Palestine to him but now called Israel, Liyana enters a strange topsy-turvy world. She doesn’t know the language and armed soldiers, hostile to them simply because they are Arabs, single the Abboud family out at the airport; questioning them and searching their luggage. When Poppy’s family comes into Jerusalem to visit the newly arrived family at their hotel they too are treated with suspicion and hostility. Liyana is relieved she won’t have to wear a head scarf, “the older (women) had long white scarves draped and knotted firmly over their hair. The younger ones had bare heads.” The Arab relatives kiss and hug and when they first meet Poppy’s mother, Liyana’s grandmother, Sitti, “threw back her head, rolled her tongue high up in her mouth, and began trilling wildly.” Liyana is startled but the aunts simply “began clapping a rhythmic beat.” Liyana dressed in a plain, black, pleated skirt, because the culture she has entered doesn’t allow women to wear slacks, begins to feel drab beside the women whose “long dresses were made of thick fabrics, purple, gold, and navy blue, and stitched brightly with fabulous, complicated embroidery.” The women all wear gold bangles on their wrists and “touch (Liyana’s) earlobes (because) she wore no gold earrings, as they did.” On their first visit to Sitti’s house Liyana and Rafik are spellbound by their surroundings; “olive trees planted in terraced rows up hillsides, walls of carefully stacked stones, old wells with real wooden buckets…and when the cars climbed the steep hill into the village, children popped out of front doors to look at them, as if cars didn’t drive up there very often.” The food is strange but delicious, “hunks of baked lamb surrounded by rice and pine nuts,” eaten communally from one huge platter (so that) “Poppy asked if his family could have individual plates since they weren’t used to eating communally” a request that isn’t easily granted due to the fact that individual plates aren’t used or needed. But despite all the strangeness of their new country, Liyana finds herself beginning to feel at home even after witnessing the death of a live chicken she has gone to the shop with her mother to buy. The one thing Liyana can’t seem to get used to is the hatred felt by some of the Palestinians and Israelis for each other; and when she falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she realizes she can no longer remain outside the conflict, but must come to terms with what she can do to help the peace process. Eleven to sixteen year olds will enjoy the exotic setting and the interpersonal conflicts of Habibi.
4. Review excerpts
School Library Journal: “Grade 5-9. 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. When Liyana falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she challenges family, culture, and tradition, but her homesickness fades. Constantly lurking in the background of the novel is violence between Palestinian and Jew. It builds from minor bureaucratic annoyances and humiliations, to the surprisingly shocking destruction of grandmother's bathroom by Israeli soldiers, to a bomb set off in a Jewish marketplace by Palestinians. It exacts a reprisal in which Liyana's friend is shot and her father jailed. 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."
Nye, Naomi Shihab, 1997. Habibi. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-689-80149-1
2. Plot Summary
14-year-old Liyana Abboud was born and raised in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Kamal; called Poppy by Liyana and her brother Rafik, is a Palestinian from Jerusalem who came to American 20 years earlier to study medicine and escape the ongoing war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He remained in the U.S. after falling in love with Liyana’s mother, Susan, and starting a family. However, Poppy feels the tensions in the West Bank have lessened and it is time for the family to move to Jerusalem and meet the Arab side of the family they have never known. And so, knowing no Arabic and with overwhelming reluctance, Liyana boards a plane in American, and lands several hours later on the other side of the world. The Abboud family soon discovers relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians remain very tense. Everything is so strange Liyana feels as if she living “on the moon,” as Rafik put it.
3. Critical Analysis
Winner of the Jane Adams Children's Book Award Habibi is the story of a typical teenager, 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, living in America. But, when she arrives in her father’s homeland, Palestine to him but now called Israel, Liyana enters a strange topsy-turvy world. She doesn’t know the language and armed soldiers, hostile to them simply because they are Arabs, single the Abboud family out at the airport; questioning them and searching their luggage. When Poppy’s family comes into Jerusalem to visit the newly arrived family at their hotel they too are treated with suspicion and hostility. Liyana is relieved she won’t have to wear a head scarf, “the older (women) had long white scarves draped and knotted firmly over their hair. The younger ones had bare heads.” The Arab relatives kiss and hug and when they first meet Poppy’s mother, Liyana’s grandmother, Sitti, “threw back her head, rolled her tongue high up in her mouth, and began trilling wildly.” Liyana is startled but the aunts simply “began clapping a rhythmic beat.” Liyana dressed in a plain, black, pleated skirt, because the culture she has entered doesn’t allow women to wear slacks, begins to feel drab beside the women whose “long dresses were made of thick fabrics, purple, gold, and navy blue, and stitched brightly with fabulous, complicated embroidery.” The women all wear gold bangles on their wrists and “touch (Liyana’s) earlobes (because) she wore no gold earrings, as they did.” On their first visit to Sitti’s house Liyana and Rafik are spellbound by their surroundings; “olive trees planted in terraced rows up hillsides, walls of carefully stacked stones, old wells with real wooden buckets…and when the cars climbed the steep hill into the village, children popped out of front doors to look at them, as if cars didn’t drive up there very often.” The food is strange but delicious, “hunks of baked lamb surrounded by rice and pine nuts,” eaten communally from one huge platter (so that) “Poppy asked if his family could have individual plates since they weren’t used to eating communally” a request that isn’t easily granted due to the fact that individual plates aren’t used or needed. But despite all the strangeness of their new country, Liyana finds herself beginning to feel at home even after witnessing the death of a live chicken she has gone to the shop with her mother to buy. The one thing Liyana can’t seem to get used to is the hatred felt by some of the Palestinians and Israelis for each other; and when she falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she realizes she can no longer remain outside the conflict, but must come to terms with what she can do to help the peace process. Eleven to sixteen year olds will enjoy the exotic setting and the interpersonal conflicts of Habibi.
4. Review excerpts
School Library Journal: “Grade 5-9. 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. When Liyana falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she challenges family, culture, and tradition, but her homesickness fades. Constantly lurking in the background of the novel is violence between Palestinian and Jew. It builds from minor bureaucratic annoyances and humiliations, to the surprisingly shocking destruction of grandmother's bathroom by Israeli soldiers, to a bomb set off in a Jewish marketplace by Palestinians. It exacts a reprisal in which Liyana's friend is shot and her father jailed. 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."
The New York Times Book Review: “Adolescence magnifies the joys and anxieties of growing up even as it radically simplifies the complexities of the adult world. The poet and anthologist Naomi Shibab Nye is meticulously sensitive to this rainbow of emotion in her autobiographical novel, Habibi…. Habibi gives a reader all the sweet richness of a Mediterranean dessert, while leaving some of the historic complexities open to interpretation.”
5. Connections
Reader’s advisory suggestions for those who enjoyed Habibi:
An Ancient Heritage: The Arab-American Minority by Brent K. Ashabranner
The Arab Americans by Alixa Naff
5. Connections
Reader’s advisory suggestions for those who enjoyed Habibi:
An Ancient Heritage: The Arab-American Minority by Brent K. Ashabranner
The Arab Americans by Alixa Naff
