This lyrical journey through Palestine’s major cities, shares historical facts, geographical information, cultural richness, and love for a homeland that will inspire and educate all readers. There is a lot of information pressed in to 32 pages and at times the rhyming text, illustrations, and maps are powerful, and at other times overwhelming. The 8.5 x 11 horizontal paperback bound book needs to be bigger to hold all that the pages contain, and hard back to hold up to the details that need to be poured over to be appreciated. The content about the names and places in Palestine is priceless and well done, but I really wanted to love the book a bit more than I ended up feeling for it. I think trying to make it all rhyme was just a bit too much for my liking, but I would buy this book again in a heartbeat to share with my children. Even though we are not Palestinian, I think all Muslims have a piece of Palestine in our hearts and feel a deep need to celebrate the culture, fight for their freedom, and demand a quality of life that they are brutally being denied by their oppressors.
The book starts out at bedtime with a little girl, Saamideh asking her baba what her name means. He explains to her that it means “one who is patient, persistent and one who perseveres.” She is named this because she is Palestinian, he explains and then he shows her the key to their ancestral home in Palestine. He asks her to close her eyes and imagine a white dove, named Salam, taking her on tonight’s journey.
Salam and Samamidah prepare to journey across Palestine’s mountains, hills, deserts, and plains. They start in Areeha, one of the oldest cities in the world, and one one of the lowest points on Earth.
They journey next to Al-Quds, the capital. They see the old city, Al-Aqsa, and more, before heading off to Nablus, Yafa, Haifa and the Akka. Learning about the cities, the food, and the history of each.
They learn about the dabkah, and the weaving in Gaza and head to Bait Lahem too. They learn about glass blowing in Al-Khalil at the Ibrabhimi Mosque, and finally they conclude their journey with the little girl dreaming of flying around the world to use her key and open people’s hearts and minds.
She proudly exclaims her love of Palestine and her and her baba pray that one day they will be able to return. Saamidah then asks her baba why they are refugees, and he promises to save that conversation for tomorrow’s beditme story.
The book concludes with a list of the city names in Arabic, trasliterated in English, and then the English names. It then has discussion questions at the end.
The book is not outwardly political, nor critical. It is a celebration of a people, a culture, and land. Happy Reading!
I am confident that every Muslim child has imagined their prayer rug at one time or another to be a flying carpet, so how absolutely heart filling as an adult to find a book that embraces this idea, roots it in Islamic fact and presents it so beautifully for our littlest Muslim believers.
Islamic School Librarian 