Culture 6: Habibi

Bibliography: Nye, Naomi Shihab. 1997. Habibi. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 9780689825231

Plot Summary:
Liyana Abboud was born and raised in St. Louis, but her father was born in Jerusalem. He came to America to study medicine, but he always knew he would return to his homeland one day. That day comes when Liyana is fourteen-years old. Her younger brother, Rafik, is excited about moving. He cannot wait to learn about his father’s culture, but Liyana is upset about it. She loves her life in America, and she doesn't want to leave. Once they arrive in Jerusalem they find that it isn’t as peaceful as her dad had thought. There is still rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews. Liyana and her brother become friends with another brother and sister who live in a refugee camp near their house. Liyana also becomes friends with a Jewish boy named Omer even though it is not safe for an Arab and a Jew to be friends. Will her family accept this friendship or will they forbid her from seeing him? Will Liyana ever call Jerusalem home?


Critical Analysis (Including Cultural Markers):
Habibi is the story of fourteen-year old Liyana Abboud and her Arab American family. The day after she gets her first real kiss, her father informs the family they will be moving to Jerusalem. He had come to the United States for a good education, but he always knew he would return to his home country one day. He wanted to do it now so his children would be able to meet his mother, their grandmother, while she was still alive. He also believed things had settled down between the Arabs and Jews.

Poppy warns the family that Sitti, his mother, “comes from a different world… She doesn’t wear anything but old-fashioned ling clothes, and she knows absolutely nothing in English”. While her relatives in the United States “held back from them as if they might have a cold” these relatives came bustling in “throwing their arms around each one of them”. Sitti becomes very emotional after seeing her son again after so many years that she “suddenly threw her head back, rolled her tongue high up in her mouth, and began trilling wildly”. Poppy informs them that this is her traditional cry that she “uses as an announcement at weddings and funerals”. So many relatives had come to greet them Liyana could not keep track of all of them.

Liyana and her brother, Rafik, befriend another brother and sister who live in a refugee camp. They are able to communicate with each other even though they are both limited in their knowledge of the others language. Rafik seems to make friends easily at school while Liyana struggles in this area. While walking around town one day during lunch she meets a nice boy in one of her favorite stores. She is scared to tell Poppy about him because it is not appropriate for a boy and girl to hang out together. It is not until later that she discovers his name is Omer, not Omar like she had thought. Omar is an Arab name, and Omer is a Jewish name. Now not only is she friends with a boy, but she is friends with a Jewish boy! Liyana will not let the fact that he is Jewish stop her from being friends with him. She tells Omer that she has “hope for peace” and when he agrees with her that is all the reassurance she needs.

The Abboud family continues to hear stories of aggression between the Arabs and Jews, and finally it reaches them personally. The Israeli police destroy Sitti’s bathroom while searching for one of her relatives. Khaled (her friend from the refugee camp) is shot because it is believed that he had something to do with a bombing. Poppy gets thrown into jail for defending Khaled because he knows he is a very peaceful person. Liyana does not understand any of this, and she tells the police “You do not have to be so mean! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!” Liyana wants to end the fighting between the Arabs and Jews by starting at home. She asks her father if Omer could come with them to Sitti’s village. Poppy reluctantly agrees. He is very surprised when his mother greets Omer with open arms knowing that he is Jewish.

The reader is left with hope for peace in Jerusalem through the actions of a young girl and her family. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from; what matters is how you treat other people. Liyana says it best: “When you liked somebody, you wanted to trade the best things you knew about. You liked them not only for themselves, but for the parts of you that they brought out.”

Although I enjoyed this book I do not think I will have it in my library collection at the elementary school. I will recommend it to the middle and high school librarians if they do not already have it. I do not think our students would be interested in this book quite yet.

Review Excerpt(s):
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-9. An important first novel from a distinguished anthologist and poet. When Liyana's doctor father, a native Palestinian, decides to move his contemporary Arab-American family back to Jerusalem from St. Louis, 14-year-old Liyana is unenthusiastic. Arriving in Jerusalem, the girl and her family are gathered in by their colorful, warmhearted Palestinian relatives and immersed in a culture where only tourists wear shorts and there is a prohibition against boy/girl relationships. When Liyana falls in love with Omer, a Jewish boy, she challenges family, culture, and tradition, but her homesickness fades. Constantly lurking in the background of the novel is violence between Palestinian and Jew. It builds from minor bureaucratic annoyances and humiliations, to the surprisingly shocking destruction of grandmother's bathroom by Israeli soldiers, to a bomb set off in a Jewish marketplace by Palestinians. It exacts a reprisal in which Liyana's friend is shot and her father jailed. Nye introduces readers to unforgettable characters. The setting is both sensory and tangible: from the grandmother's village to a Bedouin camp. Above all, there is Jerusalem itself, where ancient tensions seep out of cracks and Liyana explores the streets practicing her Arabic vocabulary. Though the story begins at a leisurely pace, readers will be engaged by the characters, the romance, and the foreshadowed danger. Poetically imaged and leavened with humor, the story renders layered and complex history understandable through character and incident. Habibi succeeds in making the hope for peace compellingly personal and concrete...as long as individual citizens like Liyana's grandmother Sitti can say, "I never lost my peace inside." -Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Greenwich, CT
From Kirkus Reviews
Liyana Abboud, 14, and her family make a tremendous adjustment when they move to Jerusalem from St. Louis. All she and her younger brother, Rafik, know of their Palestinian father's culture come from his reminiscences of growing up and the fighting they see on television. In Jerusalem, she is the only "outsider'' at an Armenian school; her easygoing father, Poppy, finds himself having to remind her--often against his own common sense--of rules for "appropriate'' behavior; and snug shops replace supermarket shopping--the malls of her upbringing are unheard of. Worst of all, Poppy is jailed for getting in the middle of a dispute between Israeli soldiers and a teenage refugee. In her first novel, Nye (with Paul Janeczko, I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You, 1996, etc.) shows all of the charms and flaws of the old city through unique, short-story-like chapters and poetic language. The sights, sounds, and smells of Jerusalem drift through the pages and readers glean a sense of current Palestinian-Israeli relations and the region's troubled history. In the process, some of the passages become quite ponderous while the human story- -Liyana's emotional adjustments in the later chapters and her American mother's reactions overall--fall away from the plot. However, Liyana's romance with an Israeli boy develops warmly, and readers are left with hope for change and peace as Liyana makes the city her very own. (Fiction. 12+) -- Kirkus Associates, LP.

Connections:
Discussion Questions and Activities:
*Research the history between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem.
*Describe how you would feel if you had to move to a new country where you did not speak or understand the language.
*Liyana had to attend a kindergarten class at her new school to learn the new language. Would you do the same or would you want to learn the language a different way? Explain your response.
*Bring hummus, flat bread, pine nuts, etc. for students to sample.
*Respond to the following quote from the book: The calendar has a wide-open face.
Other Books by Naomi Shihab Nye:
*Sitti's Secrets. ISBN 9780689817069
*I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You Ok? ISBN 9780060853921
*Benito's Dream Bottle. ISBN 9780027684674
*Come With Me: Poems for a Journey. ISBN 9780688159467
*What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur. ISBN 9780399254543