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list price: $9.95
category: Children's Nonfiction
published: June 2004
ISBN:9780888996459
publisher:
Groundwood Books Ltd
list price: $9.95
category: Children's Nonfiction
published: June 2004
ISBN:9780888996459
publisher:
Groundwood Books Ltd
Description
In a rehabilitation center for disabled children, twelve-year-old Nora says she loves the color pink and chewing gum and explains that the wheels of her wheelchair are like her legs. Eleven-year-old Mohammad describes how his house was demolished by soldiers. And we meet twelve-year-old Salam, whose older sister walked into a store in Jerusalem and blew herself up, killing herself and two people, and injuring twenty others. All these children live both ordinary and extraordinary lives. They argue with their siblings. They dream about their wishes for the future. They have also seen their homes destroyed, their families killed, and they live in the midst of constant upheaval and violence.
This simple and telling book allows children everywhere to see those caught in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as children just like themselves, but who are living far more difficult, dangerous lives.
Contributor Notes
Deborah Ellis has won the Governor General’s Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the University of California’s Middle East Book Award, Sweden’s Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, and the Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. She is a member of the Order of Canada and has been named to the Order of Ontario.
She is best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy, set in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a series that has been published in twenty-five languages, with $2 million in royalties donated to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan and Street Kids International.
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age:
- 0
- Grade:
- p to 17
- Reading age:
- 0
Awards
- Short-listed, Rocky Mountain Book Award
- Long-listed, BC Teen Reader's Choice Award Stellar Awards
- Long-listed, OLA Silver Birch Award
- Commended, Cooperative Children's Book Center Choice - Best of the List
- Commended, Pennsylvania School Librarians Association (PSLA) YA Top Forty (or so) List
- Commended, CCBC Our Choice (Starred Selection)
Editorial Reviews
Highly recommended for school and public libraries.
— Resource Links
Here is a balanced and thought-provoking work recommended for school and public libraries.
— Multicultural Review
...a moving, sometimes chilling, expression of the disruption and distress created in young people's lives by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, as well as a reminder of the human capacity for hope and renewal.
— Quill & Quire
...stirring...These young people come from diverse faiths - they are Jewish, Muslim and Christian - and yet it is the commonality of their experience that impresses the reader.
— Yellowknifer
A balanced historical introduction provides background for the interviews in which children talk about how the choices other people have made have affected their lives. Ellis alternates Israeli and Palestinian voices and prefaces each of the accounts by an informative discussion of pertinent issues and a profile of the interviewee and his/her experiences...The candid and passionate voices in these narratives may be used to awaken interest and encourage discussion among young readers.
— Canadian Materials
An accessible historical overview that is fair to all sides...
— Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
An excellent presentation of a confusing historic struggle, told within a palpable, perceptive and empathetic format.
— School Library Journal
To read the collection as a whole is inspiring.
— VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)
...it also gives a wrenching sense of childhood during a terrorist war, expressed in what appear to be genuine voices. It requires discussion after reading and would be an especially apt choice for school libraries. Recommended with reservations for Grades 5 to 12.
— Association of Jewish Libraries Newsletter
