Genocide Bad
Genocide Bad. by Sim Kern Interlink Books, 2025 Sim Kern’s Genocide Bad.[1] presents itself as a call to conscience for young readers. Its thesis, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, is declared based on the author’s ideological beliefs, rather than proven with evidence. In place of a logically reasoned argument supported by facts […]
A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine
A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine by Reza Aslan Meet a Kids Co., 2024 The recently published a kids book about Israel and Palestine was issued as part of Dorling Kindersley’s “a kids book about” series. (All titles are lower case.) It’s a series with a mission: “to empower a new generation of kids through diverse storytelling.” […]
A Map for Falasteen
A Map for Falasteen by Mayse Odeh, illustrated by Aliaa Betawi Henry Holt and Co., 2024 A Map for Falasteen purports to educate young readers in the history of the Palestinian people. Its unifying device is a trio of adults – a grandfather, grandmother, and mother – answering a child’s innocent question: Can Palestine […]
We Are Palestinian
We Are Palestinian by Reem Kassis, illustrated by Noha Eilouti Crocodile Books, 2023 Tatreez is a Palestinian embroidery practice and is done by threading a needle through fabric to make pretty designs (p. 30). Palestinians use [za’atar] to make fresh salads or akras za’atar, a flat bread layered with za’atar, green onions and plenty of […]
These Olive Trees
These Olive Trees by Aya Ghanameh, illustrated by Aya Ghanameh Viking Books for Young Readers, 2023 Stories of exile and return are bedrock motifs of the Western literary tradition. Think of The Odyssey, which chronicles Odysseus’s long exile and tortuous return to Ithaca, or the exile and return of the Hebrews, down to Egypt and […]
Old Enough to Know
Old Enough to Know by Alice Rothchild Cune Press, 2023 “Younger generations of children desperately need the books and educational experiences that will help ground them in a fuller understanding of this troubled area of the world.”[i] It is with these high-sounding words that author Alice Rothchild advocates for a less lofty goal than […]
Homeland
Homeland by Hannah Moushabeck, illustrated by Reem Madooh Chronicle Books, 2023 Hannah Moushabeck runs Interlink Publishing, which released Wafa’ Tarnowska’s Amazing Women of the Middle East (under the Crocodile Books imprint) in 2021, to considerable controversy. That book’s colorful map of the Middle East erases Israel (replacing it with “Palestine”), and, though Jews originate […]
Zain & Mima Stand for Palestine
Zain & Mima Stand for Palestine by Eman Kourtam Independently Published, 2022 Self-described Egyptian American Muslim mother and author Eman Kourtam envisions her children’s book Zain & Mima Stand for Palestine as “a fun dynamic way” to tell “stories about real life situations,” so readers can grow up to be “wonderful caring human beings.” In […]
Wishing Upon the Same Stars
Wishing Upon the Same Stars by Jacquetta Nammar Feldman HarperCollins, 2022 Teachers and librarians are often on the lookout for books offering an even-handed approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Authors, in both Israel and the diaspora, have attempted to rise to the occasion: Many employ a device that easily degenerates into cliché – a relationship […]
They Called Me a Lioness
They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri One World, 2022 An attractive Palestinian teenager appeared in 2015 at the third Beirut conference of the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine, an umbrella group for a “global network of Palestinian solidarity organisations,”[i] many of which support terrorism. With her curly mane of […]