Lily and Salma are childhood friends who do everything together.  All school activities are shared and enjoyed every  day. They always eat lunch together. However, they each different lunches.  Lily always  favored a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Salma enjoyed a hummus and pita sandwich.   Each of the girls thought the other’s  sandwich looked rather yucky. For the first time the girls did not eat lunch together.  The next day insults flew around the lunchroom.  Soon the insults had nothing to do with the food but became something “not so nice to say to the other.”  The end result was a food fight.

The girls have to help clean up. Next day they join each other at lunch and decide to try each others’ lunch.  Surprisingly each enjoyed the different foods. They arranged a food festival for the entire school where different foodstuffs were offered. Thus Lily and Salma teach the true spirit of tolerance and acceptance.

A happening when the queen was a youngster inspired the story and multi-talented Tricia Tusa brought it gloriously to life. Her lively colorful expressive artwork truly makes the story  breathe.  The  faces of the children are simply special. And the lunchroom scenes are to be treasured. How well I remember those days of Lunch Duty!!  This is a real treat to be savored and enjoyed by young and old.

Samy is a typical teen and provides some of the lighter more humorous moments in this tension filled day.  They encounter another Palestinian boy, Wasim, who fills Sammy’s head with stories of international travel as a potential soccer star. They  join up with David and Grace, two  American born Israeli peace activists. At one point  David climbs the wall and encourages the children to  follow him over the wall and into Jerusalem.

The story is filled with tension as the two travel to get some soil.  The story is remarkable in that the author presents the Palestinian side of this on-going conflict in  a simple easy to understand manner. We meet a variety of travelers inconvenienced by that ubiquitous wall. The reader is left not with any resolution, but, importantly, I think an understanding of what is really happening in that part of the world where peace and harmony are absent.  This book has much  for readers to ponder and discuss.  Believe me, it is an enjoyable day’s travel with two intrepid teens.  Much humor sprinkled liberally with great pathos makes this book a TRUE Winner!

Israeli Palestinian conflict  as seen through the eyes of Palestinian teens,  living under military occupation,  international influence of sport of soccer,  Palestinian family,  dispossessed of home and land home.  All readers from Middle school up; story even has elements which would appeal to high school students.  Current history packaged interestingly.  Author’s previous books have been well received.

This story opens as eleven year old Fadi is staring out a cab backseat window one starry night.  Fadi, his parents and two sisters are fleeing from Kabul, Afghanistan,  heading to Jalalabad in the eastern part of the country.  Fadi’s father has given him a charge to watch over his six year old sister, Mariam. The taxi leaves the family at an abandoned site where they will be collected and taken the final part of their journey into Pakistan. When the truck arrives, other refugees hiding at the site rush to board.  Fadi refuses to put his sister’s Barbie doll in his jacket and in the confusion she slips out of his hand. She is swept into the crowd and, when they arrive, Mariam is not with them. She has been left behind.

After trying valiantly to locate the child, the family continues on its flight to America where they will seek asylum. Fadi is stricken with guilt over his minor role in the sister’s disappearance.

His father with a PHD in agriculture lands a job driving taxi; the older sister, Noor, starts working at MacDonalds and Fadi starts middle school in Freemont California. His mother is not well over worry about Mariam. As one might imagine Fadi faces multiple problems adjusting to school.  Conflicts arise and get resolved in a variety of ways

The particular importance of this book to me was in the blending of the coming of age of Fadi and the history of Afghanistan. At no time does the author ever interrupt the narrative to give the reader a history lesson. Instead history is brought out naturally as the characters talk, react to each other, and generally go about their daily living. Concerns over Osama, the Taliban , President Karzai  all surface especially after the terror attack in New York and Washington. Now the concerns over their Muslim faith  surfaces and must be confronted.

The story is captivating and will hold any readers’ interest. A Glossary of terms and suggested other writings are included at the end of the book. One writing in particular I know is very helpful in explaining the Taliban’s effect on the country.  Ellis, Deborah  PARVANA’S JOURNEY , Groundwood Books, 2004.   Appropriate for any reader grade 5 and up.

This story combines many diverse elements like biography, poetry and magical realism as it slowly unfolds the life of an extremely uncommon boy. This curious child walks to the beat of a different drummer most assuredly.  Paramount in his life however, is the menacing almost presence of his father. This wall of obstinacy counteracts  all the creative aspects of this child’s life. The child  acts and reacts as an almost terror stricken human. There are times and places though when his creative spirit takes control and our young child thrives and matures.

The child Neftali’s life is dominated  by the harshness of his father but also  is softened and nurtured by the care of his Mamadre, sister of his deceased mother, and supported by a caring older brother Rodolfo and a younger sister Luarita. The influences of these three individuals  contributed immeasurably to Neftali’s development as one of Chile’s greatest poets, Pablo Neruda.

The life events of this amazing young child play significant roles in his development as poet. The arrangement of the story, the poetry and the art all combine into a reading experience one must savor for oneself. Some of the art was included in my reading copy, but this  served only  to make me want to see the final finished art to make my reading experience more complete.

This book should be classified as biography, but actually it is so much richer. The pages dealing with the hundreds of influences which affected this poet as a child are mesmerizing and almost bewitching. The author, Pam Munoz Ryan, weaves a spell of words on the reader.  Peter Sis in his magnificent art adds another dimension to these brilliantly placed words. This book is a winner for all ages. Available April 2010.

A new book,  MUKTAR AND THE CAMELS by Janet Graber,  illustrated by Scott Mack (Henry Holt,  2009, $16.99) takes our young reader into an orphanage on the Kenya and Somalia border. An orphan Muktar dreams fondly of his family when he tended their camels.  One day a visitor arrives with camels and books. However one of the camels is injured and Muktar offers his help to the traveler. The traveler is a librarian working for the Kenya National Library Service and not particularly adept at handling camels. Muktar is taken on and promises to return often to the orphanage to replenish their supply of books.

Lines from this text illustrating the differences between cultures are fantastic. For example after a day of travel Muktar lay beside the camel and “The tangy smell of fresh excrement makes him drowsy.” The young boy’s life differs so radically from what most American children would ever encounter. Yet, these are the young people our young people must face in the future. I feel strongly that if all cultures could ever really get to know each other, more than superficially on television, so much of the conflicts would be lessened if not eliminated.

Terry is awakened from sleep by a noise. Could it be a night-prowling cat or that horned owl who lives nearby?  No, he is convinced it is the Irish legend, the Banshee who wails outside a house when death is near. But who could the Banshee be coming for? Terry’s Ma, his da, or brother Liam?  He musters his courage and heads out to beg the Banshee to go away.

This spooky delightful story shows dramatically the Irish culture. The art done by our Chatham neighbor Emily is almost scary enough to make young listeners cuddle a bit closer to the reader. Terry’s courage going out to face the Banshee is made just that much more melodramatic through her uses of very dark colors and shades. Terry’s gift for the spirit of his prized peacock feather is a perfect ending to this clever story for Halloween .

This story certainly is not limited to Halloween, but has a definite place in any study of Irish culture for example.

This true story from Afghanistan tells of a young girl who desperately wants to go to school. However the Taliban do not support educating girls. Nasreen’s grandmother hears of a secret school and enrolls Nasreen. The power of simply being in school with a dedicated teacher and a new friend lifts Nasreen out of her sadness. Powerful text matched with powerful illustrations.

This attitude differs dramatically from the American mind set  of many. Picture book, available now.

In the story we meet  a farm family of five.  They family is forced to slip away from their village in the dead of night with only what meager possessions they can carry. Father has borrowed against the harvest and the crops have failed this year.

Gopal the teenage son,  in an attempt to earn some moneys to assist, has become trapped in a garret factory gluing beads on picture frames for the tourist trade. The conditions under which he and five other boys labor are almost slave like.

In an attempt to rally the other  boys into becoming a family of sorts,  every night after lights out Gopal tells stories. Some are his own family based; some are culturally based. Each of the boys ultimately shares his own story of how he came to be in servitude.

During this sharing of personal  stories the reader learns of the plight of the less fortunate  particularly the vulnerable youth.  I guarantee  almost any reader will feel the pangs of hunger in the bellies of the boys and the sting of the brutal lash against  their bare backs.

This is truly a most remarkable read. A Name Guide and Glossary at the end of the book should provide readers with help in understanding the narrative. The book comes recommended for grades 4-7. I would raise the range to include higher grades doing World Culture studies. I caution only that the horrors and terror of the captive situation might prove too disturbing to readers at the lower level of recommendation. Be  careful and selective which audience receives this book.