Tag: memoir

Posted in Books, Reviews

Review: We’re in This Together: A Young Readers Edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders by Linda Sarsour

Posted on by Hadeal Salamah

Sarsour, Linda. We’re in This Together: A Young Readers Edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders
Salaam Reads / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Nov. 2022. 240. Tr $17.99. ISBN  9781534439290.

In this Young Readers’ edition of her 2020 memoir We Are Not Here To Be Bystanders, Linda Sarsour narrates and reflects upon the events that shaped her into the person and activist she is today. Outlined in chapters, Sarsour makes connections to her life experiences and her work with a multitude of communities that she is a part of and influenced by, her role as co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington and continuous fight for people’s rights.

Recalling her summer visits to Palestine, and her family’s village of El Bireh, she expresses a deep generational, sensory, and spiritual connection to its people, history, and land. Particularly rich are the depictions of tastes and smells, and the strong sense of memory, belonging, tradition, love, and loss. It is through this framing that she discusses her parents’ sacrifice as immigrants to America, and who herself as a Palestinian American, from a young age often had to assert the legitimacy and existence of her people. Often perceived as Latinx or Italian, this racial ambiguity often led Sarsour to feel “almost invisible.” 

As a student at John Jay High School in Brooklyn, Sarsour first makes the connection between the Occupation in Palestine and similar over-policing excessive force experienced by her Black and Brown peers. “For all my life up to that point, I had trusted the police, but the more I discussed the situation with my Black and Brown classmates, I learned that most feared the police and had experienced injustice at the hands of the cops”(69). Though a young Linda sees elements like padlocked and bars on windows at John Jay, she admits that she did not learn that this was not the case in high-performing, white, or suburban schools until she was an adult. 

It is after 9/11 that Sarsour witnesses the surveillance of the Muslim community, and becomes an advocate for social services with the Arab American Association of New York, in the footsteps of her mentor Basemah Atweh, and whose passing shaped Sarsour’s broader community organizing, activism, and collaborating with other organizations advocating for change, particularly for communities of color. 

Linda’s memoir is easy to understand, accessible and full of emotions—loss, joy, belonging, change. Sarsour shares many powerful memories of coming into her multifaceted identity. One such moment is when she chose to wear the hijab—”Finally, I appeared to the world exactly how I felt on the inside: generous, courageous, humble, compassionate. Unapologetically Muslim.” Sarsour weaves in information about notable activists and civil rights leaders, and through her own experiences, addresses and guides readers through shaping their own activism and processing trauma, grief, and healing. Backmatter includes a glossary of Arabic terms and endnotes. 

Muddy People: A Muslim Coming of Age by Sara El Sayed

Muddy People: A Muslim Coming of Age
by Sara El Sayed
Greystone Books

“By turns heartfelt, bitingly funny, and emotionally devastating, Muddy People is not your average coming-of-age tale. I loved this memoir of a young Egyptian-Australian girl growing up Muslim. It’s a clear-eyed, fierce debut; every word rings true.”—Nadine Jolie Courtney, author of All-American Muslim Girl 

A quick, clever debut that is “like the best kind of cake: warm, sweet, a bit nutty—and made with so much love.”—Alice Pung, author of Unpolished Gem 

Sara is growing up in a family with a lot of rules. Her mother tells her she’s not allowed to wear a bikini, her father tells her she’s not allowed to drink alcohol, and her grandmother tells her to never trust a man with her money.

After leaving Egypt when Sara was only six years old, her family slowly learns how to navigate the social dynamics of their new home. Sara feels out of place in her new school. Her father refuses to buy his coworkers a ginger beer, thinking it contains alcohol. Her mother refuses to wear a hijab, even if it would help them connect with other local Muslims. And Sara learns what it feels like to have a crush on a boy, that some classmates are better friends than others, and that her parents are loving, but flawed people who don’t always know what’s best for her, despite being her strongest defenders.

For readers of Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, this heartwarming book about family and identity introduces a compelling new voice, with a coming-of-age story that will speak to everyone who’s ever struggled to figure out where they belong.

Summary via Edelweiss

We’re in This Together : A Young Readers Edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders by Linda Sarsour

We’re in This Together : A Young Readers Edition of We Are Not Here to Be Bystanders
by Linda Sarsour
Salaam Reads / Simon & Schuster

An inspiring and empowering young readers edition of We Are Not Here to be Bystanders, the memoir by Women’s March co-organizer and activist Linda Sarsour.

You can count on me, your Palestinian Muslim sister, to keep her voice loud, keep her feet on the streets, and keep my head held high because I am not afraid.

On January 17, 2017, Linda Sarsour stood in the National Mall to deliver a speech that would go down in history. A crowd of over 470,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, to advocate for legislation, policy, and the protection of women’s rights—with Linda, a Muslim American activist from Brooklyn, leading the charge, unapologetic and unafraid.

In this middle grade edition of We Are Not Here to be Bystanders, Linda shares the memories that shaped her into the activist she is today, and how these pivotal moments in her life led her to being an organizer in one of the largest single-day protests in US history. From the Brooklyn bodega her father owned to the streets of Washington, DC, Linda’s story as a daughter of Palestinian immigrants is a moving portrayal of what it means to find your voice in your youth and use it for the good of others as an adult.

Summary via Edelweiss (cover pending)

Don’t Look Back : A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America

Don’t Look Back : A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America
by Achut Deng and Keely Hutton
Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan

A gripping and timely memoir from a former refugee, perfect for fans of National Book Award finalist When Stars Are Scattered and #1 New York Times Bestseller A Long Walk to Water

I want life.

For ten years, Achut Deng surrived at Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya after her family was ripped apart by the Second Sudanese Civil War. But Achut wanted to do more than merely survive. She wanted to live.

The twenty-two-year civil war essentially orphaned over 20,000 children and drove them from their villages in southern Sudan. Some of these children walked over a thousand miles, through dangerous war zones and across unforgiving deserts. They are often referred to as The Lost Boys. But there were girls, too. Achut Deng was one of them. This is her story.

It’s a story of unimaginable hardship and selfless bravery, of tormenting physical pain and amazing emotional resilience, of unbreakable bonds of friendship and family. It’s a story about what happens when your dream comes true, only to give way to a new nightmare.

It’s about how hard you will fight to save your own life.

Summary and cover image via Edelweiss

Go Back to Where You Came From : And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali

Go Back to Where You Came From:
And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American
by Wajahat Ali
W.W. Norton

“Go back to where you came from, you terrorist!”

This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago?

Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. (“Become a doctor!”) He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y.

Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.

Cover image and summary via Edelweiss

Better, Not Bitter Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice by Yusef Salaam

Better, Not BitterBetter, Not Bitter Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice by Yusef Salaam
Hachette/Grand Central Publishing

This inspirational memoir serves as a call to action from prison reform activist Yusef Salaam, of the Exonerated Five, that will inspire us all to turn our stories into tools for change in the pursuit of racial justice.

They didn’t know who they had.

So begins Yusef Salaam telling his story. No one’s life is the sum of the worst things that happened to them, and during Yusef Salaam’s seven years of wrongful incarceration as one of the Central Park Five, he grew from child to man, and gained a spiritual perspective on life. Yusef learned that we’re all “born on purpose, with a purpose.” Despite having confronted the racist heart of America while being “run over by the spiked wheels of injustice,” Yusef channeled his energy and pain into something positive, not just for himself but for other marginalized people and communities.

Better Not Bitter is the first time that one of the now Exonerated Five is telling his individual story, in his own words. Yusef writes his narrative: growing up Black in central Harlem in the ’80s, being raised by a strong, fierce mother and grandmother, his years of incarceration, his reentry, and exoneration. Yusef connects these stories to lessons and principles he learned that gave him the power to survive through the worst of life’s experiences. He inspires readers to accept their own path, to understand their own sense of purpose. With his intimate personal insights, Yusef unpacks the systems built and designed for profit and the oppression of Black and Brown people. He inspires readers to channel their fury into action, and through the spiritual, to turn that anger and trauma into a constructive force that lives alongside accountability and mobilizes change.

This memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation’s inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam’s message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.

Cover image and summary via Hachette

Toufah : The Woman Who Inspired an African #MeToo Movement

Toufah by Toufah Jallow and Kim PittawayToufah : The Woman Who Inspired an African #MeToo Movement
by Toufah Jallow and Kim Pittaway
Penguin Random House/Truth to Power

The powerful story of Toufah Jallow, a brilliant and inspiring young woman who, after she was forced to flee her home in The Gambia, bravely bucked taboo and named herself as a survivor of a sexual assault by the country’s dictator—launching an unprecedented protest movement.

In 2015, Toufah Jallow was the 19-year-old daughter of the second wife in her Muslim father’s polygamous household. Her mother, outwardly conforming, saw to it that her daughter received an education and was able to pursue her own ambitions.

Dreaming of a scholarship, Toufah entered a presidential competition purportedly designed to identify the country’s smart young women and support their educational and career goals. Toufah won.

Yahya Jammeh, the dictator who had ruled The Gambia all of Toufah’s life, styled himself as a pious yet progressive protector of women. At first he behaved in a fatherly fashion toward Toufah, but then proposed marriage, and she turned him down. On a pretext, his female cousin then lured Toufah to the palace, where he drugged and raped her.

Toufah could not tell anyone. There was literally no word for rape in her native language. If she told her parents, they would take action, and incur Jammeh’s wrath. Wearing a niqab to hide her identity, she gave Jammeh’s security operatives the slip and fled to Senegal. Her route to safety in Canada is full of close calls and intrigue.

18 months after Jammeh was deposed, Toufah Jallow became the first woman in The Gambia to make a public accusation of rape against him, sparking marches of support and a social media outpouring of shared stories among West African women under #IAmToufah, setting her on the path to reclaiming the future of personal growth and education that Jammeh had tried to steal from her, a future also of leadership and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence, especially in heavily patriarchal countries lacking resources and laws to protect women and even the language with which to speak openly about sexual threats and violence.

Cover and summary via Penguin Random House

Posted in Books, Reviews

Review: My Grandma and Me by Mina Javaherbin

Posted on by Ariana Hussain

This review was originally published in the November/December issue of Horn Book magazine and can also be found on the Horn Book website.

My Grandma and Me
by Mina Javaherbin; illus. by Lindsey Yankey
Primary    Candlewick    32 pp.    g
8/19    978-0-7636-9494-4    $16.99

The unnamed narrator recalls her childhood growing up in Iran (where the author also grew up) with her beloved grandmother, who lives with the family. The child accompanies her grandma on her daily routines (“When she swept, I swept. When she cooked, I cooked. When she prayed, I prayed like her, too”), through which the child experiences joyful elements of Iranian Islamic culture and acts of faith. They also spend time with friends (Grandma’s best friend’s granddaughter is our narrator’s best friend); and as the older women laugh, drink coffee, and knit blankets for their mosque and church, respectively, the children (and readers) witness a beautiful interfaith friendship. Yankey’s muted illustrations work well to convey cherished memories and love, with thoughtful cultural details incorporated throughout — a hopscotch board with numbers in Persian, a henna stain on the back of a hand. Striking Persian patterns providing an eye-catching, but not disruptive, contrast to the quotidian activities. Appended notes on the copyright page provide heartfelt details about the author’s and illustrator’s grandmothers. A lovely homage to the unconditional love and wisdom of elders.

From the November/December 2019 Horn Book Magazine.