While getting ready to write this post, I realized that there are not nearly enough young adult books published here in the United States that share the Arab American experience. Back in 2018, Catherine Faris King wrote a guest post: Paging All Arabs: On Representation and Reclamation and said, “The representation of Arabs in American media is in a sorry state.” King explains that when she wrote The Ninety-Ninth Bride, “I also had an agenda to bring a little more Arab representation to the world. I wanted to represent Arabs as people, with disappointments and friendships and all the fiddly details that go into an ordinary life.”
I was excited to see a book coming out in May that has teens with Arab heritage, but then realized it is written by Jackie Khalilieh who was raised as a Palestinian in Canada. I didn’t want to leave out a new title, so I’m including it even thought it’s quite a few miles outside of the United States. Khalilieh is using her voice to share her heritage and represent Palestinians. In an essay for the Toronto Star she explains that she “…will continue to write happy, romantic, silly, fun stories about Palestinians full of hope that celebrate our identity and take up space on the shelves.” Something More was published in 2023 and the new You Started It, will be out on May 20th.
Here are the titles already mentioned and some additional titles to read this month or anytime of the year. Beyond our list, another resource for finding books by and/or about Arab Americans is the Arab American Book Award. If you know of other titles we should watch for, please let us know.
Tagging Freedom by Rhonda Roumani
Union Square Books
Kareem Haddad of Damascus, Syria, never dreamed of becoming a graffiti artist. But when a group of boys from another town tag subversive slogans outside their school, and another boy is killed while in custody, Kareem and his friends are inspired to start secretly tag messages of freedom around their city.
Meanwhile, in the United States, his cousin, Samira, has been trying to make her own mark. Anxious to fit in at school, she joins the Spirit Squad where her natural artistic ability attracts the attention of the popular leader. Then Kareem is sent to live with Sam’s family, and their worlds collide. As graffitied messages appear around town and all eyes turn to Kareem, Sam must make a choice: does she shy away to protect her new social status, or does she stand with her cousin?
Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
Make Me a World
my mother meant to name me for her favorite flower
its sweetness garlands made for pretty girls
i imagine her yasmeen bright & alive
& i ache to have been born her instead
Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn’t different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can’t, and suddenly her only refuge is gone.
As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen—the name her parents meant to give her at birth—Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might be more real than Nima knows. And the life Nima wishes were someone else’s. . . is one she will need to fight for with a fierceness she never knew she possessed.
Mirage by Somaiya Daud (It also has a sequel – Court of Lions)
Macmillan
In a world dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated home.
But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram. The princess is so hated by her conquered people that she requires a body double, someone to appear in public as Maram, ready to die in her place.
As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty—and her time with the princess’ fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear. If Amani ever wishes to see her family again, she must play the princess to perfection…because one wrong move could lead to her death.
A Hand Full of Stars by Rafik Schami
Interlink Books
Inspired by his dearest friend, old Uncle Salim, he begins a journal to record his thoughts and impressions of family, friends, life at school, and his growing feelings for his girlfriend, Nadia. Soon the hidden diary becomes more than just a way to remember his daily adventures; on its pages he explores his frustration with the government injustices he witnesses. His courage and ingenuity finally find an outlet when he and his friends begin a subversive underground newspaper.
Warmed by a fine sense of humor, this novel is at once a moving love story and a passionate testimony to the difficult and committed actions being taken by young people around the world.
I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malaka Gharib
Clarkson Potter
I Was Their American Dream is at once a coming-of-age story and a reminder of the thousands of immigrants who come to America in search for a better life for themselves and their children. The daughter of parents with unfulfilled dreams themselves, Malaka navigated her childhood chasing her parents’ ideals, learning to code-switch between her family’s Filipino and Egyptian customs, adapting to white culture to fit in, crushing on skater boys, and trying to understand the tension between holding onto cultural values and trying to be an all-American kid.
Malaka Gharib’s triumphant graphic memoir brings to life her teenage antics and illuminates earnest questions about identity and culture, while providing thoughtful insight into the lives of modern immigrants and the generation of millennial children they raised. Malaka’s story is a heartfelt tribute to the American immigrants who have invested their future in the promise of the American dream.
Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by Naomi Shihab Nye
Greenwillow Books
Voices in the Air is a collection of almost one hundred original poems written by the award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye in honor of the artists, writers, poets, historical figures, ordinary people, and diverse luminaries from past and present who inspire her and us. Full of words of encouragement, solace, and hope, this collection offers a message of peace and empathy.
Voices in the Air focuses on the inspirational people who strengthen and motivate us to create, to open our hearts, and to live rewarding and graceful lives. With short informational bios about the influential figures behind each poem, and a transcendent introduction by the poet, this is a collection to cherish, read again and again, and share with others.
Featuring black-and-white spot art throughout, as well as brief bios of the “voices,” an index, and an introduction by the author.
The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine Faris King
Book Smugglers Publishing
“Sister, would you please tell me a story?”
Dunya is fifteen when her father, the Grand Vizier, gives her over to the mad Sultan for his bride. Ninety-eight Sultanas before Dunya have been executed, slaughtered at the break of dawn following their first night with their new husband. But on her own wedding night, the ninety-ninth bride finds help from the mysterious and beautiful Zahra, who proposes to tell the Sultan a story…
The Ninety-Ninth Bride is a story of sisters and magic, and a kingdom on the brink of disaster.
Something More by Jackie Khalilieh * Arab Canadian
Tundra Books
Fifteen-year-old Jessie, a quirky loner obsessed with the nineties, is diagnosed as autistic just weeks before starting high school. Determined to make a fresh start and keep her diagnosis a secret, Jessie creates a list of goals that range from acquiring two distinct eyebrows to getting a magical first kiss and landing a spot in the school play. Within the halls of Holy Trinity High, she finds a world where things are no longer black and white and quickly learns that living in color is much more fun. But Jessie gets more than she bargained for when two very different boys steal her heart, forcing her to go off-script.
You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh * Arab Canadian
Tundra Books
Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster has big plans for senior year. She’s made a list of things and places in Toronto she and her boyfriend of three years, Ben Cameron, need to check off before graduating. And the biggest plan of all: a very special night for the two of them at the upcoming Winter Formal. But then Ben arrives back home after a summer away with an unthinkable announcement: he wants to break up.
And when Jamie discovers him with Olivia Chen the next day, she is determined to get him back. Even if that means fake dating the younger, curly-haired, TikTok dancer Axel Dahini, whose bicycle she accidentally ran over.
Though she and Axel have nothing in common aside from their shared Arab heritage — she’s a messy, type A with anxiety; he’s carefree but meticulous — their forced time together brings them to better understand one another. And for Jamie, it just might mean learning that not all experiences or people need to be crossed off a list.
I would include Warga’s Other Words for Home, Abawi’s A Land of Permanent Goodbyes, Senzai’s Escape From Aleppo, Algarmi’s Almost Sunset, and of course, Safadi, Shifa Saltagi. Kareem Between. There is a large Somali population at my school, and I’ve struggled for twenty years to find books showcasing that culture.