Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

For 12-year-old Jude, life was happy and pleasant growing up in a tourist town by the sea in Syria. She was part of a loving family consisting of her father, mother, and older brother Issa and best friend Fatima lived next door. Both girls loved TV and American movies and wanted to be movies stars someday. But when the Arab Spring begins, and Issa joins the protest movement against the Syrian government, the life that Jude loves begins to change as well. Throughout Syria, towns are under siege and the people living in them are fleeing as fast as they can.

And although Jude's parents choose to not get involved with the protests, when it's learned that her mother is pregnant, a decision is made: Jude and her mother will travel to Cincinnati, Ohio and stay with her mother's brother and his family.

Jude and her mother are welcomed by her Uncle Mazin and Aunt Michelle, but cousin Sarah makes it clear that she wants nothing to do with Jude and is annoyed that they are even there: "She can't go to my school, Mom, Sarah says./She doesn't even speak English, she says./I spend the rest of that night/locked in the bathroom,/whispering to myself in the mirror./I speak English."

When school begins, Sarah hangs out with her friends, leaving Jude to figure out 7th grade and get by on her own. She is put into an ESL class, where she meets other students from Korea, China Somalia, also new and English learners. At first resentful, she comes to think of it a welcome part of her day, a place where she can relax and laugh.

Eventually, Jude discovers a Middle Eastern restaurant that feels and smells like home, run by the Lebanese parents of an older girl from school named Layla - finally a new friend.

As she adjusts to life in America, and her English improves, Jude decides to try out for a part for the school's production of Beauty and the Beast. Layla thinks she should work behind the scenes creating sets, but Jude wants to be on stage. So do Sarah and her friends. But when Jude gets a small speaking part in the school's production, will it be the thing that causes her to lose her friendship with Layla and all she has worked so hard to accomplish so far?

Jude is a wonderful character, she has, as the teacher in charge of the school play puts it, punch, liters of punch. When she leaves Syria, her brother tells her to "Be brave" and that is exactly what she tries to do in a place where she is so different from the other people. And she does it despite worrying about her father and brother back in Syria, despite not receiving a response to the letters she continuously sends to Fatima, and despite not always have support from her mother, and no help from her cousin.

Other Words for Home is an insightful verse novel that interrogates ideas about identity, and home. In Syria, Jude was just a girl, but in America, she is labelled "a Middle Eastern girl./A Syrian girl./A Muslim girl." And does leaving Syria mean she must give up thinking about it as home in order to find a home in the United States? Sadly, it will take a terrible act of racism for Jude to find the answer to that question.

Jude's story is divided into five parts, each one chronicling a different milestone in her journey as she struggles to understand who she is. Warga has captured all of Jude's emotional up and downs, her successes, her disappointments, and her fears in beautiful, lyrical free verse that feels so intimate, it is as though Jude has taken you into her confidences.

Other Words for Home is a story about family, hope, and dealing with the world on your own terms. It's a story that should not be missed.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Be sure to check out the other Marvelous Middle Grade Monday offerings, now being carried on by Greg at Always in the Middle. 

Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali

Zayneb Malik, 18, is a Muslim American high school senior living in Indiana. She is part Pakistani, part Guyanese and Trinidadian, wears a hijab and has a teacher, Mr. Fencer, who delights in spinning his lessons to fit his Islamophobia.

Adam Chen, 18, is a Muslim convert from Doha, Qatar, born in Canada, he's part Chinese and part Finish. He's also university student in London. I should say, was a university student. He hasn't been attending classes for months now, instead staying in his dorm and making things, including a display box for his younger sister Hanna's rock collection.

The thing that these two strangers have in common, besides being devout Muslims, is that they both keep a Marvels and Oddities journal for recording the marvels and oddities in their lives.

Now, Zayneb is on her way to Doha for two weeks after being suspended from school for writing a "threatening note" about Mr. Fencer. And Adam is on his way home to Doha to explain to his father why he hasn't been attending classes. Naturally, they run into each other at the London airport and on the plane, but it's Adam who notices the name of Zayneb's journal. Still, all his plans to try to talk to her on the plane are to no avail.

So imagine Adam's surprise when he sees his fourth grade teacher (and his deceased mother's best friend) Ms. Raymond at the airport and discovers that she is Zayneb's Auntie Nandy. It's a small world, and Zayneb and Adam have one more thing in common, they are both keeping secrets - she hasn't told Auntie Nandy why she is in Doha, Adam hasn't told his family about his multiple sclerosis diagnosis, the same disease that his mother died from when he was a boy.

Attracted to each other from that first meeting in the London airport, their relationship is on a rocky road, but it is also a road filled with marvels and oddities.

In Saints and Misfits, S.K. Ali gave readers a look into the life of a young hijab-wearing Muslim woman, whose religion is very important to her, but who finds herself in a difficult position caused by one of the rising stars of her mosque. I had never read a book before Saints and Misfits that was so focused on the different aspects of being Muslim - not just within the family and mosque, but what life is like in the world at large. Needless to say, I learned a lot, and it is a great book to boot.

So I was really looking forward to reading S.K. Ali's second novel, Love from A to Z, and I was not disappointed. Readers get to know the two main characters through written alternating journal entries as they record the marvels and oddities they experience. And once again, Ali has given readers a strong, independently thinking Muslim character in Zayneb, but she's also a nicely flawed character, having some justifiable anger issues towards Islamophobes but needing to find a more productive way to deal with them. And Ali gives us some really disturbing examples of what a Muslim female who wears a hijab like Zayneb faces on a regular basis.

Adam has his own anger issues, but while the fact that he spends his time building things seems productive, it is also a way of not dealing with his illness. Adam is also a kind, gentle, religious man, and wonderful to his little sister. He isn't exposed to the kind of vitriolic attacks that Zayneb faces, only because his being Muslim isn't as obvious. Both Zayneb and Adam have loving, supportive, understanding families, which is a welcome change from the usual angsty families in YA, though Zayneb's mother would like her to be a little more low profile.

I particularly like that Ali takes her characters (and her readers) to Doha, a place where being Muslim isn't unusual but then shows readers that it, too, is not without prejudice. For example, when Zayneb goes swimming in the pool where her aunt lives wearing a burkini, she is forced out when a resident objects.

And once again, Ali has written a YA novel, a real love story, that has sent me to Google a number of times, not the least of which was to find the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and the manuscript called The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existence that had inspired their journals and which Adam takes Zayneb to see. It's there and if you ever visit Doha, you can see it, too.

Reading Love from A to Z is a true learning experience wrapped up in a eminently readable, richly textured love story and I can't recommend this book highly enough.

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley