• Habibi

    by Naomi Shihab Nye
    1997

    It’s not wrong to show young readers that life for Arabs in West Bank villages is riddled with constraints and indignities, but it’s important to provide context for IDF policies. And no book for young readers should misrepresent the Jewish idea of chosenness as a form of Jewish supremacy.

  • Homeland

    by Hannah Moushabeck, illustrated by Reem Madooh
    2023

    The author’s nostalgic account of her father’s childhood in East Jerusalem is marred by a pernicious agenda: To erase Israel, Jews, and Hebrew from Jerusalem and prejudice young readers against Israel.

  • Ida in the Middle

    by Nora Lester Murad

    2022

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    Young readers identify with a character who feels lonely and rejected at school, but when that character promotes anti-Israel lies, the book is propaganda, and doesn’t belong in the classroom.

  • P is For Palestine

    by Golbarg Bashi, illustrated by Golrokh Nafisi
    2018

    Reading a good picture book with a child can be a joyful experience. But picture books that privilege indoctrination over imagination aren’t really literature. They betray the bond of trust between adult and child.

  • Sitti’s Bird

    by Malak Mattar
    2022

    Seeing Gaza through a child’s eyes offers young readers only a partial perspective on the conflict – especially when Hamas is erased from the story, and Israel is held responsible for all suffering.

  • Tasting the Sky

    by Ibtisam Barakat
    2007

    The author’s memories of the Six-Day War are poignant, but feelings aren’t history. This memoir inverts responsibility for the war, replacing information with distortion.

  • The Cat at the Wall

    by Deborah Ellis
    2014

    Post-October 7 revelations about UNRWA schools expose the naiveté of this dated account of the Second Intifada. It’s not misunderstanding, but hatred, that underlies the Arab-Israeli conflict.

  • The Lemon Tree

    by Sandy Tolan
    2020

    Many authors strive for even-handedness when tackling the Arab-Israel conflict in novels for young readers. But when critical context is omitted, the results will reveal an author’s bias or ignorance.

  • The Shepherd’s Granddaughter

    by Anne Laurel Carter
    2008

    There’s another name for the West Bank village of Al-Khalil – Hebron, where Abraham purchased a burial cave for Sarah. The Shepherd’s Granddaughter erases Jewish history from the spot, and maligns Jews for poisoning sheep as well.

Featured author: Naomi shihab nye

Maligning Israel for young readers

The books we read as children stay with us all our lives. In our earliest stories, big, bad wolves threaten innocent children – and few of us grow up with warm, fuzzy feelings about wolves. Replace that wolf with an Israeli soldier, and you have an indelible image. That is the danger of the writings of Palestinian-American children’s poet and novelist Naomi Shihab Nye.