A Woman Is No Man: A Novel

A Woman Is No Man: A Novel by Etaf Rum                  Audiobook: 10 hrs. 15 min      Hardback Book 352 pages               

Excellent book.   The reader will be introduced to life in Palestinian households, Muslim customs,  the roles of women in the homes and the culture clashes of Palestinian women who grow up in homes in Palestine and those who are of Palestinian lineage but who grow up in America with influcences of both cultures.    The story is especially well told from many perspectives and while much of what is told is hard, harsh, often cruel but for the most part accepted at least by the older family membrs and community to be the way of things.    The balk comes with the younger generation especially those who grow up in America and go to public schools.    The culture and religion tend to be patriarchal and certainly the births of male children are favored over that of women.   It is explained how the birth of females brings shame, contempt and judgement from the family and the Muslim in this case Palestinian Muslim community at large.    No one intervenes if a man chastises his wife regardless of the severity and infractions by wives can be anything the husband deems worthy of a beating and often bad moods can trigger severe punishments.   Often sad for what the main character goes through this story is a peek behind the closed curtain that is Islam.    Standing ovation Etaf Rum.     Readers, this book will often make you angry but stay with it to learn all it has to share even if you are mulling your own empathetic reaction to sharia law.   I would highly recommend this book as required reading to middle schoolers on up.    This would make an excellent book club selection for adult groups.   It will give you a deeper understanding of why Muslims do what they do and how what they base their opinions on.   Excellent book.

 - Shirley J

The Cat At The Wall

The Cat At The Wall by Deborah Ellis, 152 pages

Clare was a girl living in Bethlehem, PA, until the day she died and ended up as a cat in Bethlehem in Palestine.  As a cat she understands what everyone else is saying but no one pays much attention to her.  The story fluctuates between her current life as a cat and her remembering her previous life as a girl.  When she was a girl she wasn’t really a very nice person, aggravating her teacher, throwing tantrums at home and picking on her sister and other kids at school.  As a cat, she is witnessing a possible tragedy unfold, with two Israeli soldiers taking over a Palestinian home to spy on the neighborhood.  No one is home in the house except for a seven or eight year old boy.  This seemed to be a good portrayal of the conflict in Palestine today and a good journey of self-analysis for Clare.  Overall, I thought this was a good story but felt a little unresolved at the end.  This would appeal to a wide variety of upper elementary kids. 

The Wall

The Wall by William Sutcliffe, 289 pages

People who are different live on the other side of the wall.  People on Joshua’s side of the wall say that the other people want to bomb and kill Joshua’s people.  When Joshua finds the tunnel that leads to the other side of the wall he is curious so he crawls through.  What he finds there surprises him.  A group of boys chase him and it’s clear to Joshua that they want to hurt him, but a girl helps him.  She hides him and helps him find his way back to the tunnel so he can get home.  Joshua ends up trying to help the girl’s family, but when his stepfather finds out about the family, he nearly destroys everything.  While the actual setting of this story is fictional, it resembles the conflict in Israel’s West Bank.  This was a really good book and teens interested in real life stories about other countries will enjoy this.

The Cat At The Wall, Deborah Ellis

The Cat At the Wall, Deborah Ellis, 2014 152 pages

        I heard about this title at a recent Youth Services Meeting, and when it came into Central, I thought I would see if it was any good.  This is a short chapter book that packs a punch for readers of all ages.  I could not put this book down. Ellis deftly crafts a narrative that deals with the complexities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in a way that is visceral, moving, and inventive.

        This is the story of a little girl who dies and is reincarnated as a stray cat in the city of Bethlehem.  It is told from her perspective, and flashes back periodically to her life back in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. What I really like about the whole story is that Ellis does not tell us what to think about this conflict or give us a convoluted history of the conflict.  She creates a narrative around the experiences of a few people, and a stray cat who may be able to make a difference. Worth the time to read.