Culture 6

Bibliography
Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. HABIBI. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0689801491.

Plot Summary
In this story fourteen year old Liyana Abboud moves with her family, her parents and her brother, from America to Palestine. Her mother is an American and her father is an Arab. Liyana is very upset about moving to Jerusalem. She doesn’t want to leave her friends and grandmother and move to the other side of the world. Her father is very excited about moving back and thinks that things have changed over there and that it is more peaceful now. Once they arrive in Jerusalem they find out that it is not as peaceful as her father believed. We see how the family must adjust to this new way of life and how Liyana is able to come to love her new homeland.

Critical Analysis
Seeing the world through the eyes of a fourteen year old girl can be very enlightening. Liyana is a refreshing character with unusual insights. She was raised in America and has to adjust to a new life that is completely different from her old life. She must learn a new language and eat new foods. Even transportations is different. She has a unique perspective because as she explains in Arabic she is “Nos-nos” which means half-half. The characters physical descriptions are another cultural marker. The only reference to skin color takes place when she sees the relatives looking at her mother. She starts by describing her mother as an inch taller than Poppy, and her skin two shades lighter. She goes on to say that her and her brother had inherited her Poppy’s olive skin. She also mentions that her mother has long hair, just like all of her women relatives.

Much of the setting is in Jerusalem. Some of the political struggles of this area are played out in this story. Liyana’s father, Poppy, has his own personal views, and Liyana has hers. The one thing they agree on is that would like to have peace in this area. Liyana meets a Jewish boy, and they become friends. It is difficult for her father to accept this even though he had Jewish friends as a child.

The plot keeps moving through Liyana’s life. There is always an underlying tension and element of danger. Most of the plot moves along with Liyana’s explorations of the city and her life in her new school. At one point a friend of hers gets shot by the police because of a rumor, and her father ends up going to jail for trying to stop it. Her father is a doctor and was still put in jail. They learn that the American way of “innocent until proven guilty” is not a way of life in the Middle East. After this incident her father decides he needs to take a stand and become more active in trying to attain peace in this area.

Most of the characters in the story are American, Arab or Jewish. Many of the people in the story speak at least some English. Liyana has to go to a school where several languages are learned and spoken. For lessons in Arabic she has to go and sit in the Kindergarten class. Her father wants her to learn to love two countries like he does, at first Liyana really dislikes Palestine, but by the end of the story her opinions change. The strong theme of family is central to this story. Liyana’s immediate family is very important and so is her new and extended family. Religion is also an important theme in this story. Various religions beliefs are talked about. The main characters in the story however do not have a particular religion. They do believe in God and describe their religious beliefs as spirituality.

Language is an important part of the cultural authenticity of the story. Liyana’s father must do most of the translating for the family, but Liyana and her brother are both learning to speak Arabic. The author uses many words and phrases in Arabic. She usually seamlessly writes them into the text. The words or phrases are often italicized and then the explanation or translation is given. For example when Liyana is in a bakery the text go like this “Liyana liked katayef best--a small, folded-over pancake stuffed with cinnamon and nuts and soaked in syrup. She took home three half-moons of katayef in a white cardboard box.” Food and eating are also central cultural themes in this story. They often eat as a family and the food is usually talked about. Some of the foods mentioned are: falafel, baba ghanouj, baklava and hummus. The name of the story is also explained in one of the chapters. Habibi means darling, a dearly loved person, a favorite, a charmer. Liyana says her father used the word often and they always new they were loved. Her mother used the English word precious.

This culturally authentic book would be a great addition to any library collection.

Review Excerpts
From School Library JournalGrade 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."?Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CTCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times Book Review, Karen LeggettAdolescence 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. (Ages 10 and older) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Liyana Abboud, 14, and her family make a tremendous adjustment when they move to Jerusalem from St. Louis. All she and her younger brother, Rafik, know of their Palestinian father's culture come from his reminiscences of growing up and the fighting they see on television. In Jerusalem, she is the only ``outsider'' at an Armenian school; her easygoing father, Poppy, finds himself having to remind her--often against his own common sense--of rules for ``appropriate'' behavior; and snug shops replace supermarket shopping--the malls of her upbringing are unheard of. Worst of all, Poppy is jailed for getting in the middle of a dispute between Israeli soldiers and a teenage refugee. 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. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Connections
Read more books by Naomi Shihab Nye : 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East and Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
Research the Middle East
Read books about the Middle East including: Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis