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settare's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars rounded up to 4
An effortlessly captivating style of writing, with the innocence of a 13-year-old protagonist is what I like about this book: makes its dark and heavy setting less intense. Being exposed to our media, which shows only bombings, destruction and conspiracy when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, makes it very hard to imagine that in the West Banks, life goes on. Tourists walk around, kids go to school, people throw weddings, dance Dabka, buy groceries and, well, live their lives. For me, the concept of acceptance among people of different ethnicities in a multi religious environment IN THE MIDDLE EAST, is very very difficult. This book is one of the best children's book I've read. War is always better described from the point of view of a child, and the author has managed to add humor and life to the sad and dark themes of the book. however, I could clearly distinguish between when Hayaat was talking and when the author herself took over, putting adult words in the mouth of a child, but there weren't many moments like this. There was a lot of history in the book but it wasn't forced, it was natural and real. Overall I enjoyed it very much and I think more kids should have the opportunity to read it. (It made me want to visit Jerusalem so badly, but that's not possible, so, never mind. Ugh.)
An effortlessly captivating style of writing, with the innocence of a 13-year-old protagonist is what I like about this book: makes its dark and heavy setting less intense. Being exposed to our media, which shows only bombings, destruction and conspiracy when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, makes it very hard to imagine that in the West Banks, life goes on. Tourists walk around, kids go to school, people throw weddings, dance Dabka, buy groceries and, well, live their lives. For me, the concept of acceptance among people of different ethnicities in a multi religious environment IN THE MIDDLE EAST, is very very difficult. This book is one of the best children's book I've read. War is always better described from the point of view of a child, and the author has managed to add humor and life to the sad and dark themes of the book. however, I could clearly distinguish between when Hayaat was talking and when the author herself took over, putting adult words in the mouth of a child, but there weren't many moments like this. There was a lot of history in the book but it wasn't forced, it was natural and real. Overall I enjoyed it very much and I think more kids should have the opportunity to read it. (It made me want to visit Jerusalem so badly, but that's not possible, so, never mind. Ugh.)
singinglight's review against another edition
4.0
I really admire Abdel-Fattah for addressing a topic as sensitive as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a children’s book, and doing it in a remarkably non-preachy way. Her main character is Palestinian, as I’m assuming she also is, so she naturally shows a pro-Palestinian bias. But I almost never felt like it was politics in disguise. Towards the end I think it did slip a little into monologue, but overall I was very pleased with both the story and the author. [Mar. 2011]
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