I really like Liyana and the way Shihab Nye portrays her family's move from Missouri to Jerusalem, but I can't figure out the meaning of the abrupt ending. Is it supposed to be hopeful? Or maybe it's supposed to represent that, regardless of the relationships between individuals in Israel/Palestine, the conflicts have a life of their own?

I read this with my son as part of Level 7 of the Build Your Library homeschool curriculum. ( )

Goodreads Review:
An award-winning novel about identity, family, and friendship from renowned writer and editor Naomi Shihab Nye.

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?

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. ( )

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 ( )

This multicultural novel accurately describes the angst of a young teenager being ripped from the life she knew in the United States to the unfamiliar word of the West Bank. Habibi is a sensitive and moving story regarding the culture differences as well as the conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine in the 90s. Naomi Shahab Nye does a great job with this story since she was also a Palestinian-American who moved to the West Bank when she was a teenager.