SuitabookHabibi
Naomi Shihab Nye
- Reading
- Read alongside a conversation about names, home and the meanings families attach to places. Pause when political tensions arise, asking what different characters may understand or feel.
- Themes
- Belonging and displacement: Liyana moves with her family from St Louis to Jerusalem, near her father’s Palestinian birthplace. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Jewish-Palestinian tensions: The family lives between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where Liyana’s father was born, amid tensions between Jews and Palestinians. The book?s stance on this remains unclear.
- Family affection and change: Liyana values her father calling her “habibi”, meaning “darling”, while the family undertakes a difficult move. The affectionate address is clearly valued by Liyana and provides an intimate counterpoint to the larger upheaval.
- Worth knowing
- Pay attention to how the book presents Jewish and Palestinian identities, and whether its hope for peace is explored through complexity or mainly expressed as an ideal. The ending remains unclear.