It’s the first night of the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Arab countries. Three-year-old Ibtisam, hunting frantically for a shoe, loses her family as they join the throng of anxious Palestinians fleeing Ramallah into Jordan. Desperate hours will elapse before the family is reunited. This beautifully written memoir of the author’s childhood on the Israeli-occupied West Bank unfolds against a harsh backdrop of war and cultural displacement. The family endures poverty, separations and frequent relocation. Yet life goes on, by turns surprising, funny, heartbreaking and rich with possibility. In an overcrowded Jordanian school-room housing refugees, Ibtisam discovers Alef, the first letter of the Arab alphabet, and a key unlocking the magical world of written words. Courageous and curious, but by no means always well-behaved, Ibtisam and her brothers find ways to assert their strong wills in defiance of the authorities that govern their lives. The injustices that rankle come at the hands of parents and teachers, not broader geopolitical realities. A compassionate, insightful family and cultural portrait. (map, historical note, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-374-35733-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
A browser’s delight, packaged to fit small coffee tables.
A tantalizing sampler of American roadside attractions, ghosts and spooky local legends for audiences not yet familiar with the TV show of the same name and its attendant series of state-by-state print guides.
Shoveled haphazardly into thematic chapters, the several hundred stopovers range from old reliables like Roswell, Bigfoot, jackalopes and the Watts Towers to various art car shows, festivals like the annual Roadkill Cook-off in West Virginia and such undeservedly obscure locales as New Jersey’s Shades of Death Road and Maine’s International Cryptozoology Museum. The authors supply a paragraph or two of credulous commentary on each that includes specific places and people along with back story and, for the more elusive or supernatural oddities, locally gathered rumors and anecdotes. Small but sharp photos—or melodramatic Photoshopped images for the various specters—on every page add both atmosphere and additional credibility for readers who may have trouble believing in, for instance, the many giant fiberglass “Muffler Men” dotting the Midwest or all the buildings shaped like teapots, picnic baskets and various foodstuffs. Readers allergic to exclamation points may want to skip this one.
A browser’s delight, packaged to fit small coffee tables. (Infotainment. 10-13)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-5462-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
This appealing work stands as both a portrait of two unconventional women and a celebration of the possibilities of arts...
An affectionate, lively examination of the reciprocal relationship between a great artist and two great art lovers.
Etta and Claribel Cone, unmarried sisters from a wealthy Baltimore family, "were born around the time of the Civil War" and became energetic, discerning collectors of modern art, particularly that of Henri Matisse. Claribel Cone was a doctor; Etta Cone managed her parents' household. Both traveled extensively in Europe and, around the turn of the 20th century, fell in with Leo and Gertrude Stein. Informed by Leo's adventuresome sense of aesthetics as well as their own daring tastes, they embraced the works of the young Matisse in 1905 and enthusiastically befriended him. Fillion sketches her characters neatly and swiftly, following the women over the next decades as they amassed what became one of the most significant American collections of modern European art. Though this is not a beginner’s text, she folds in economical explanations of early-20th-century European art, cogently contextualizing Matisse and his contemporaries. Their account is lavishly illustrated in full color by reproductions from the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Matisse-inflected paintings by the author, who drew extensively on the Cone archive that is also housed at the museum.
This appealing work stands as both a portrait of two unconventional women and a celebration of the possibilities of arts patronage. (author/illustrator's note, bibliography, sources) (Biography. 10-14)Pub Date: July 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56792-434-3
Page Count: 92
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
