From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 12:04:02 -0500

All credit to Naomi Shihab Nye for the "bouquet of books" phrase, and much gratitude to Susannah and Megan for bringing Naomi Nye and her books into our conversation! Here are five books possibly not mentioned so far, and three bear Naomi Nye's name. Each offers much to enjoy, about which to reflect and from which to learn. I've adapted four of the annotations from annual editions of "CCBC Choices."

1. "Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale"
<http://www.amazon.com/Tunjur-Palestinian-Folktale/dp/0761452257/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210868149&sr=1-1> retold by Margaret Read MacDonald with artwork by Alik Arzoumanian
(Marshall Cavendish, 2006) A woman with no children prays to Allah: "I would love a child, even if it is nothing more than a cooking pot!' WILLA! She had a child! And it was a little pot!" The woman loves Little Pot, who is bursting with enthusiasm and affection for her mother. When, against her better judgment, the woman lets Little Pot go to the market by herself, she discovers it is just as she feared: Little Pot does not yet know right from wrong. First Little Pot steals honey from a rich man who fills her, then she steals jewels from the king's wife. Little Pot finally learns a funny, foul-smelling lesson about taking things that do not belong to her in another entertaining retelling - this time of a Palestinian tale. Well-paced, choicely worded, and full of humor, MacDonald's narrative is accompanied by Arzoumanian's cheerful, richly hued acrylic paintings.

2. "The Situe Stories" written by Frances Khirallah Noble (Arab American Writing / Syracuse University Press, 2000). Short fiction written and published for adult & teen readers. From a comment by Naomi: "Eleven lovely, delicious short stories with an Arab grandmother at the heart of them."

3. The picture book "Sitti's Secrets" written by Naomi Shihab Nye with artwork by Nancy Carpenter (originally published by Four Winds/ Macmillan, 1994; 1997 Aladdin pbk.ed. is still available) Mona's grandmother,Sitti, lives "on the other side of the earth" in a Palestinian village on the West Bank. Despite a language barrier, Mona and her grandmother share daily life and special moments when Mona and her father visit her. Upon Mona's return to the United States, she writes a letter to the president: "If the people of the United States could meet Sitti, they'd like her for sure. You'd like her, too." Paired with Nancy Carpenter's sun-drenched illustrations, Naomi Shihab Nye's poetic text explores a child's feelings and fears about a grandparent living far away in a part of the world that most children in the U. S. know only one-dimensionally, if at all, through reports in the news."
"Sitti's Secrets" won the 1995 Jane Addams Award in the Picture Book category, and Nye's novel "Habibi" (Simon & Schuster, 1997) won the 1998 Jane Addams Award in the Books for Older Children category.

4. The incomparable anthology "The Space between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East" edited by Naomi Shihab Nye (Simon & Schuster, 1998). " It is quite possible that the Middle East is one of the most negatively stereotyped places on earth," Nye begins in this anthology. "I can't stop believing that human beings everywhere hunger for deeper-than-headline news about one another. Poetry and art are some of the best ways this heartfelt 'news' may be exchanged." The works of 20th century poets and artists, women and men, from nineteen Middle Eastern nations are compiled within a book that resonates with words and images at once both recognizable and wholly distinct, as is the heart of every human being. Many of the poems are rich with details of places and customs unfamiliar to most U.S. readers, or familiar, as the introduction states, only through the news, which reports on guns and bombs, but not hearts and souls. All of the poems hold the promise of discovery inherent in fine writing. The beautifully reproduced paintings are also points of entry into this too-often foreign part of the globe. The visual images provide readers with the opportunity to make further connections between the paintings and the images expressed in poems placed nearby. Source notes, biographical information about the poets and translators, and indexes to the works are provided in this exquisite, important volume bringing diverse perspectives on the Middle East into focus through the human heart rather than the framework of political boundaries. This elegant, fabulous gift book can be examined and enjoyed repeatedly at many stages of life and awareness. The abridged paperback edition without artwork ("The Flag of Childhood," Aladdin, 2002) was included in the substantial list Megan shared earlier today.

5. "19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East" written by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow, 2002), a National Book Award Nominee appreciated by teens and adults alike. This slim volume contains 57 of Nye's original poems written about the Middle East and about being an Arab American, collected here with young readers in mind. Most are very short. All involve impassioned images: people, aromas, happenings. In the title poem Nye writes, "For years the Arab poets used 'gazelle' / to signify grace / but when faced with a meadow of leaping gazelle / there were no words . . . What else had we seen in our lives? / Nothing better
. . . Don't bother to go there," said a man at our hotel. "It's too far.
/ . . . There is no gazelle in today's headline . . ." Nye's poem dated September 11, 2001, ends, "Peace is rough." Nye knows this, and yet she doesn't give up. Neither will her young readers, because her belief in all people shines through in her exquisite poetry.

Peace, Ginny

Ginny Moore Kruse Emeritus Director, CCBC gmkruse at wisc.edu
Received on Thu 15 May 2008 12:04:02 PM CDT