Habibi

Shihab Nye, Naomi. 1999. Habibi. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 978-0689825231.

This is poet Naomi Shihab Nye's first novel, and Liyana, the book's tween narrator, clearly has Shihab Nye's gift for language and poetic sensibility. Snippets of Liana's poetry begin each chapter. They not only offer extra insight into Liyana's feelings, but add to the story's beautifully-evoked setting.

The story begins with Liyana, her brother Rafik, and her parents moving from St. Louis to Jerusalem, where her father grew up. It's an adjustment for everyone in the family, including Dr. Abboud, who had believed that tensions between Israelis and Palestinians had lessened while he had been in the US. Details of daily family life are rich and plentiful, and when Liyana's first boyfriend, an Israeli boy named Omer, visits her family, we get the sense that the Abbouds are not only ready to call Jerusalem home, but are also ready to move ahead into a challenging future.

One of my favorite things about this book is the relationship between Liyana and Rafik. Without ever being sappy, they're two of the warmest and wittiest siblings I've ever read about. ("Are you sick?" Liyana asks when Rafik vomits in their hotel room on arrival. "No, dope-dope, that's how we say hello in my language," Rafik says wearily.)

While this book will be a great introduction to Palestinian culture for kids who are unfamiliar with it, it also makes clear that Jerusalem is a mix of many cultures. Liyana goes to an Armenian school where her friends jokingly turn her last name into "Abboudian" so it matches theirs. Rafik is one of the few boy students at a Quaker girls' school. When the family has Christian evangelists over for dinner, the guests understand that the Abbouds are American but assume that they're Jewish.

Violence and political tensions are clearly present, but usually as background to the events of everyday life, as they have to be for residents of Jerusalem who are trying to live as normally as possible.

I was surprised by my reaction to the fact that the Abbouds stay in Jerusalem at the end of the book, and I realized that I had assumed all along that they would move back to the US. There is a genre of "tourist" fiction in which the American expatriates experience a foreign culture and then go back home, but this book is a more realistic portrayal of the immigrant experience. Dr. Abboud has always missed his home, and as he tells Liyana, some, all, or none of the family might go back to the US in the future. Jerusalem is their home, at least for the forseeable future, not a tourist destination to visit and leave.

I would recommend this book to our sizable group of youth patrons who like the Royal Diaries series. It's got a lush setting they're probably unfamiliar with, a tween narrator, and a touch of romance, while being something new and not formulaic!

In the New York Times Book Review, Karen Legget says, "Adolescence magnifies the joys and anxieties of growing up even as it radically simplifies the complexities of the adult world. The poet and anthologist Naomi Shibab Nye is meticulously sensitive to this rainbow of emotion in her autobiographical novel, Habibi…. Habibi gives a reader all the sweet richness of a Mediterranean dessert, while leaving some of the historic complexities open to interpretation."

Legget, Karen. New York Times Book Review. Qtd. in Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Habibi-Naomi-Shihab-Nye/dp/0689825234/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5676480-3776938?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186084804&sr=1-1.