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Yesterday, I reviewed Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, Ibtisam Barakat's gripping account of her childhood growing up on the war-torn West Bank.

As I mentioned in my review, found here, I found myself wishing to know more about the history of the war and of the long, ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. But given the fact that Barakat stayed with the viewpoint of a young child, that kind of information just wouldn't have worked in this particular book. After reading the book, your children and students will be likely to have questions about the war and the continuing conflict that has been ongoing for decades.

Not surprisingly, I had difficulty finding neutral websites that stuck to the facts, but I did manage to find a couple here:

Social Studies for Kids This site gives a basic overview of the conflict.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in a Nutshell A more detailed overview, with lots of links for more information.

In addition, in the back of the book, Barakat gives recommendations for books, websites, and films where you can learn more about the history. I'm most intrigued by these books:

Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak by Deborah Ellis
From booklist: " 'They murdered my friend.' Growing up separate and apart in a world of bombs, bullets, removals, checkpoints, and curfews, 20 Israeli and Palestinian young people talk about how the war has affected them. The author of Parvana's Journey (2002) and other novels about children in Afghanistan moves to nonfiction with 20 stirring first-person narratives by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim young people she interviewed in 2002. An accessible historical overview that is fair to all sides leads off, followed by brief individual profiles of the kids, which include a small photo, and the words of kids, who are traumatized, angry, hopeful, hateful, despairing, brave."

The Flag of Childhood: Poems From the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye
Book description from Amazon: "In this stirring anthology of sixty poems from the Middle East, honored anthologist Naomi Shihab Nye welcomes us to this lush, vivid world and beckons us to explore. Eloquent pieces from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere open windows into the hearts and souls of people we usually meet only on the nightly news. What we see when we look through these windows is the love of family, friends, and for the Earth, the daily occurrences of life that touch us forever, the longing for a sense of place. What we learn is that beneath the veil of stereotypes, our human connections are stronger than our cultural differences."


Barakat also mentions the organization, Seeds of Peace. From the site: "Founded in 1993, Seeds of Peace is dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence." It's well worth checking out.

These links, along with Tasting the Sky, will help your child learn more about the conflict between Israeli and Palestine and help put a face to the stories we read about and hear on the news.

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So, while I was buried under that mountain called "real life," I missed a totally important announcement:

The Cybil winners were announced. I had the most awesomest extreme pleasure to serve as one of the judges for Middle Grade/Young Adult nonfiction.

So, in today's super-long post, I'm giving the run-down of all of our nominees-- they were all fantastic!!!

But, it's Friday, so first, a poem:








A Song for Alef

Alef the letter
Is a refugee.
From paper
To paper
He knows
No home...

To read the rest, you'll have to read this year's winner, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood Ibtisam Barakat

Ibtisam was 3 1/2 when the Six Day war forced her family to fell from their home in the West Bank. After the harrowing experience of being seperated from her family in the confused mob, she finds them and they manage to escape to Jordan.

The Barakat family live as refugees in shelters, in a classroom, and on a new friend's kitchen floor for nearly 5 months before being allowed back home. But, once home, there is still shooting, still fighting. It's not safe, so it's to an orphanage. There, here brothers are sent away for brawling.

Eventually, they move. Through it all, Barakat's solace is language and her love of the letter alef--the first letter of the alphabet in Arabic and Hebrew.

But, underneath it all, Tasting the Sky is a story of growing up, of losing a pet and sibling rivalry, of making friends and worrying about school, of moving and saying goodbye. While there is sadness in Barakat's tale, there is no anger or hatred, just a hope for peace. And that's a hope we call all share.

Who Was First?: Discovering the Americas Russell Freedman

Dude, it's Russel Freedman, you know it rocks.

This time, the master of children's non-fic takes on the discovery of America. He starts with Christopher Columbus and then works backwards through time, discussing who discovered America before Columbus, who discovered him before that and on and on. He also devotes a fair chunk to current theory and theories we've discarded over the years.

It had a great design--good use of white space and lots of pictures and maps. However, some of the illustration captions were a bit confusing.

He spends a whopping 10 pages discussing Gavin Menzies's theory that the Chinese discovered the US in 1421. Although Freedman gives both sides of the debate, it seems like a lot of page space to devote to a theory that not a lot of historians credit.

I was most impressed by Freedman's sources and his amazing ability to take very complex, academic arguments and make them accessible to a children's audience without dumbing them down.

The Periodic Table: Elements with Style Adrian Dingle

This is a fun look at the elements. Going through the periodic table, it presents basic information about selected elements including atomic weight, color, date of discovery as well as what it is used for and random fun facts. All of this information is accompanied by a fun drawing of the element, looking awesome and anthropomorphized. Where it might not be the best reference book, it's a really fun book for browsing through and learning about the elements. It also has an awesome pull out poster of the periodic table with all the cool cartoon guys in their little squares. 2 complaints-- not all of the elements are covered in the book. Also, when discussing radium, there was no mention of radiation (which seems like a pretty big oversight!) and when discussing bismuth, there was no mention of Pepto (a lesser oversight, but one that would have been fun to include!)

Ok, so that's 3 of the 6 nominees. Stay tuned for more!

Oh! and Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by the ever-lovely Kelly over at Writing and Ruminating!

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I'm on a Flowers of Evil kick at the moment.

The poems become darker and darker as you read through the cycle, so I've chosen a happier one from the beginning of the collection.

There's an excellent website devoted to Charles Baudelaire and Flowers of Evil, with multiple English translations included for each poem. As the authors of the site say, Edna St. Vincent Millay's translations are, in many ways, the best. I'm quoting six lines from The Sun in St. Vincent Millay's 1936 translation. To read the poem in its wonderful entirety, please click here.

Le Soleil

....

I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play, —
Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away;
Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street,
Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to meet.

The sun, our nourishing father, anemia's deadly foe,
Makes poems, as if poems were roses, bud and grow;

...

=======================

Elaine Magliaro is hosting the roundup at Blue Rose Girls. Leave her your links in the comments!

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