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    Habibi
    Habibi
    Habibi
    Audiobook5 hours

    Habibi

    Written by Naomi Shihab Nye

    Narrated by Christina Moore

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    For 14-year-old Liyana Abboud, life in St. Louis, Missouri is perfect. She loves shopping in the nearby stores and walking down streets where she knows everyone. Even better, she has just had her first kiss. But her father is moving the family to Jerusalem-the land where he was born. Suddenly Liyana finds herself a stranger in a threatening world. Shopkeepers bargain in odd-sounding languages, soldiers roam the neighborhoods with guns, and kissing in public can be downright dangerous. At home with her family she is still Habibi-Precious. But to everyone else, she is only a half-American, half-Arab nobody. As the days stretch into months, Liyana wonders if she will ever find a place in her father's mixed-up homeland. Naomi Shihab Nye's richly poetic prose won a Jane Addams Book Award and was an American Bookseller "Pick of the Lists." Christina Moore's moving performance will make listeners laugh and cry-and view the world from a whole new perspective.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 20, 2009
    ISBN9781436188999
    Author

    Naomi Shihab Nye

    Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and she spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She earned her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio. Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than forty years traveling the country and the world, leading writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than thirty books. Her books of poetry for adults and young people include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (a finalist for the National Book Award); A Maze Me: Poems for Girls; Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners; Honeybee (winner of the Arab American Book Award); Cast Away: Poems of Our Time (one of the Washington Post’s best books of 2020); Come with Me: Poems for a Journey; and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Her other volumes of poetry include Red Suitcase; Words Under the Words; Fuel; Transfer; You & Yours; Mint Snowball; and The Tiny Journalist. Her collections of essays include Never in a Hurry and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven. Naomi Shihab Nye has edited nine acclaimed poetry anthologies, including This Same Sky: Poems from Around the World; The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems from the Middle East; Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25; and What Have You Lost? Her picture books include Sitti’s Secrets, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter, and her acclaimed fiction includes Habibi; The Turtle of Oman (winner of the Middle East Book Award) and its sequel, The Turtle of Michigan (honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award). Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, four Pushcart Prizes, the Robert Creeley Award, and ""The Betty,"" from Poets House, for service to poetry, and numerous honors for her children’s literature, including two Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards. In 2011 Nye won the Golden Rose Award given by the New England Poetry Club, the oldest poetry-reading series in the country. Her work has been presented on National Public Radio on A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac. She has been featured on two PBS poetry specials, including The Language of Life with Bill Moyers, and she also appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers. She has been affiliated with the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin for twenty years and served as poetry editor at the Texas Observer for twenty years. In 2019–20 she was the poetry editor for the New York Times Magazine. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and in 2017 the American Library Association presented Naomi Shihab Nye with the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. In 2018 the Texas Institute of Letters named her the winner of the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was named the 2019–21 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. In 2020 she was awarded the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement by the National Book Critics Circle. In 2021 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Naomi Shihab Nye is professor of creative writing-poetry at Texas State University.

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    Reviews for Habibi

    3.5/5

    103 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I liked the book and enjoyed many of the scenes, but aside from having mixed race and non-white characters, the book didn't really have any of earmarks of an award-winning novel.
    • 4/5
      Well written classic work of nonfiction that holds up. Palestine is described exactly as it is. Through the well-written story, Nye presents a balanced picture of what it's like to live in Palestine/the West Bank by including a Jewish character.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful book! This story navigates identity, conflict, and teen love with grace and sincerity. I laughed and cried. In the end, I was grateful to have read it. Not many books take on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and this one manages to humanize it and be a quiet call for peace.

      Lexile: 850
    • 3/5
      A nice little story about a young girl's struggle to make a new life for herself when the family moves from America to Israel. Despite the unrest, continual threat of war and the cultural differences between the Arabs, Armenians, Jews and Palestinians, Liyana gradually finds new friends and acceptance in her father's country. At times the plot is a little slow and Liyana is not always believable. However, the book does provide a interesting portrayal of the Arab-Israeli conflict that is occurring in the Middle East.
    • 4/5
      A little slow at the start, but the book grew on me a little once the pace picked up. (The author's style of putting several loosely connected vignettes at the beginning made me think of a mosaic being put together in random order -- it takes a while to look like anything.) Since this is told in third person rather than in first, even though it mostly follows the girl's perspective, the narrative voice could've been more interesting and use more complex sentences. But I did like the little details of life in Palestine, and also appreciate the overriding message about how Arabs and Jews should put aside their anger and start listening to each other.
    • 2/5
      The day after Liyana got her first real kiss, her life changed forever. Not because of the kiss, but because it was the day her father announced that the family was moving from St. Louis all the way to Palestine. Though her father grew up there, Liyana knows very little about her family's Arab heritage. Her grandmother and the rest of her relatives who live in the West Bank are strangers, and speak a language she can't understand. It isn't until she meets Omer that her homesickness fades. But Omer is Jewish, and their friendship is silently forbidden in this land. How can they make their families understand? And how can Liyana ever learn to call this place home?
    • 4/5
      Absolutely wonderful book. Lovely language. Lots of cultural detail. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Everything changes for 14-year-old Liyana when her Palestinian father announces their family will be moving from her hometown of St. Louis to Jerusalem, his birthplace. Liyana feels very homesick and put off by the violence and cultural differences at first-- until she meets a Jewish boy named Omer. This novel is realistic, necessarily complex, and beautifully written by renowned Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab-Nye. "Habibi" is a great introduction into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for youths, and is also a darling love story.
    • 4/5
      This book tells a lot of the Palestinian and Jewish cultures and how the 2 cultures aren't particually "friends". One big war, has seperated them. When Liyanna moves from the big city of St. Louis, Minnesota to a small town near Jerusalem, she faces a lot of culture changes. (or as my S.S teacher would say, culture shock :-)) Liyanna makes friends at a new school and becomes friends with a boy named, Omer. She starts to 'like' him and finds out he is Jewish. From a Palestinian culture, this friendship is practically "forbidden". How does her family take the friendship? What about her new "big" family of aunts, uncles and cousins? Read it!Even though there is a little love (kiss, kiss), this book shows how 2 cultures have been seperated for years and how Liyanna trys to break the long-lost bond. If your a girl or a boy, read this book! ~ Rated 4-star because at some times it is too lovey and boring- but is still an amazing read.