Here are 100 books that The Grand Mosque of Paris fans have personally recommended if you like
The Grand Mosque of Paris.
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As an Arab American, I rarely saw kids’ books about Arab Americans. And until recently, many of the books featuring Arabs and Arab Americans reiterated old stereotypes, showing them in the desert with camels, or as only an ancient (and often backwards) culture, ignoring all the exciting, modern contributions of Arabs historically, and today. In the West, Arabs are often stereotyped as hyper-religious, terrorist, or war-torn. I wanted to share kids’ books about Arab kids having fun, being creative, and in loving, caring families – books that share the richness of Arab culture in a positive way.
Imagine if war forced you to suddenly leave your home, taking only what you could carry - would you bring your cat? This Syrian family transports their cat Kunkush in a basket with them, all the way across the Mediterranean Sea, only to lose him on the beach in Greece. Would they ever see Kunkush again? Reading this gripping, true tale of how the white kitty was reunited with his immigrant family, I was especially moved to see that photos of the real family, Kunkush and their epic journey were included too!
This heartwarming true story of one lost cat's journey to be reunited with his refugee family gently introduces children to a difficult topic and shows how ordinary people can help with compassion and hope.
When an Iraqi family is forced to flee their home, they can’t bear to leave their beloved cat, Kunkush, behind. So they carry him with them from Iraq to Greece, keeping their secret passenger hidden away.
But during the crowded boat crossing to Greece, his carrier breaks and the frightened cat runs from the chaos, disappearing. After an unsuccessful search, his family has to continue their…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
As an Arab American, I rarely saw kids’ books about Arab Americans. And until recently, many of the books featuring Arabs and Arab Americans reiterated old stereotypes, showing them in the desert with camels, or as only an ancient (and often backwards) culture, ignoring all the exciting, modern contributions of Arabs historically, and today. In the West, Arabs are often stereotyped as hyper-religious, terrorist, or war-torn. I wanted to share kids’ books about Arab kids having fun, being creative, and in loving, caring families – books that share the richness of Arab culture in a positive way.
Salma and her mom live in a refugee camp in Canada, and they miss Salma’s dad, who is still in Syria. Salma decides to cook a Syrian meal for her mom, but to make the meal a success, she needs to get help and ingredients from everyone in the village. I loved how making and sharing the food they miss from their home in Syria helped Salma and her mom start to build a new community. And the illustrations are as delicious as the food they cook!
Newcomer Salma and friends cook up a heartwarming dish to cheer up Mama.
All Salma wants is to make her mama smile again. Between English classes, job interviews, and missing Papa back in Syria, Mama always seems busy or sad. A homemade Syrian meal might cheer her up, but Salma doesn't know the recipe, or what to call the vegetables in English, or where to find the right spices! Luckily, the staff and other newcomers at the Welcome Center are happy to lend a hand-and a sprinkle of sumac.
With creativity, determination, and charm, Salma brings her new friends together…
As an Arab American, I rarely saw kids’ books about Arab Americans. And until recently, many of the books featuring Arabs and Arab Americans reiterated old stereotypes, showing them in the desert with camels, or as only an ancient (and often backwards) culture, ignoring all the exciting, modern contributions of Arabs historically, and today. In the West, Arabs are often stereotyped as hyper-religious, terrorist, or war-torn. I wanted to share kids’ books about Arab kids having fun, being creative, and in loving, caring families – books that share the richness of Arab culture in a positive way.
Ask someone to name inventions or inventors and they’ll probably think of Western culture. But Arabs and Muslims have an amazingly creative history. I loved browsing through this colorful book of facts and pictures, where I learned how Arabs invented algebra, mapped and named the stars, and made all kinds of discoveries in the fields like medicine, architecture, and language. While Europe was in the Dark Ages, Arabs and Muslim civilization flourished, and this book will reinvent how you see history!
We often think that people from a thouand years ago were living in the Dark Ages. But from the 7th century onward in Muslim civilisation there were amazing advances and inventions that still influence our everyday lives.
People living in the Muslim world saw what the Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Greek and Romans had discovered and spent the next one thousand years adding new developments and ideas. Inventors created marvels like the elephant water clock, explorers drew detailed maps of the world, women made scientific breakthroughs and founded universities, architects built huge domes larger than anywhere else on earth. astronomers mapped…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
As an Arab American, I rarely saw kids’ books about Arab Americans. And until recently, many of the books featuring Arabs and Arab Americans reiterated old stereotypes, showing them in the desert with camels, or as only an ancient (and often backwards) culture, ignoring all the exciting, modern contributions of Arabs historically, and today. In the West, Arabs are often stereotyped as hyper-religious, terrorist, or war-torn. I wanted to share kids’ books about Arab kids having fun, being creative, and in loving, caring families – books that share the richness of Arab culture in a positive way.
Farah and her best friend Allie yearn to go to middle school at the exclusive Magnet Academy. But Farah decides to screw up her schoolwork on purpose, in order to stay behind and protect her developmentally disabled younger brother from bullying. I appreciated how this book portrayed Farrar’s struggles with issues very real to kids, that adults often miss, and the inclusion of Arab culture and language throughout the book.
Farah and her best friend, Allie Liu, are getting excited to turn in their applications to the Magnet Academy, where they both hope to attend sixth grade. But when new girl Dana Denver shows up, Farah's world is turned upside down. As Dana starts bullying Farah's little brother, Samir, Farah begins to second-guess her choice to leave him behind at Harbortown Elementary/Middle School. Determined to handle it on her own, Farah comes up with a plan--a plan that involves lying to those closest to her. Will her lies catch up with her, or can Farah find a way to defeat…
When I was six years old, my Dutch relatives visited. Stories swirled about their bravery in getting secrets from the Germans and sharing the intel with the Allies, about their privation during the hunger winter, and their work hiding their Jewish countrymen. I studied abroad in 1977-1978 and took the opportunity to visit my Dutch relatives. They told me more stories of their resistance work, their escapades, and, most importantly, their “why” during my time with them. Such stories don’t leave you–ever. They percolated in my head for years until a voice came to me, Rika’s voice, and I began to write. Sixty Blades of Grass is the result.
This book brought me to boots on the ground as it supplied me with a first-hand account of life in The Netherlands during WWII. I loved every word.
Diet Eman resists the German occupation by moving her beloved Jewish friends and forged documents, at great danger to herself. Sustained by her faith, hatred of the Germans, love for The Netherlands, and her love for her fiancé, Hein, she works until her capture by the Germans.
Passionate, true, loving, suspenseful, and honest, this is a must-read for those who need to know more about the war in Holland.
Things We Couldn't Say is the true story of Diet Eman, a young Dutch woman, who, with her fiance, Hein Sietsma, risked everything to rescue imperiled Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. Throughout the years that Diet and Hein aided the Resistance--work that would cost Diet her freedom and Hein his life--their courageous effort ultimately saved hundreds of Dutch Jews.
Now available in paperback, Things We Couldn't Say tells an unforgettable story of heroism, faith, and--above all--love.
Both my parents were born in Leipzig, Germany and were survivors of the Holocaust. I grew up in Upstate New York with stories my mother recounted about her family’s dramatic escape and the many harrowing moments they endured. I was fortunate enough to interview her before her death and to acquire the memoirs of her two sisters. I've always wanted to publish their astonishing story, and I'm thrilled that my readership spans many countries.This book highlights the many individual, family, and village rescuers that saved the lives of my mother’s family. I have stayed connected to the descendants of many of these rescuers and am forever grateful for the risks these heroic people took to save the lives of the Kroch family.
This is the extraordinary memoir of Irene, a young Catholic woman from Poland who was forced to work for the Russians and the Nazis. Her compassion began as a young child when she rescued and healed injured wild animals. She later trained as a nurse. What began as small, very risky acts to smuggle food to Jews in the Polish ghetto, soon turned into much more perilous endeavors. She ultimately singlehandedly hid and fed 12 Jews in the basement of a Nazi Major’s home while she was caring for him. Irene served as a resistance fighter and a partisan who hid in the woods with other saboteurs. This is a gripping, beautifully written story of the bravery and brilliance of a 20-year-old rescuer, recounted in her own words.
IRENE GUT WAS just 17 in 1939, when the Germans and Russians devoured her native Poland. Just a girl, really. But a girl who saw evil and chose to defy it.
“No matter how many Holocaust stories one has read, this one is a must, for its impact is so powerful.”—School Library Journal, Starred
A Book Sense Top Ten Pick
A Publisher’s Weekly Choice of the Year’s Best Books
My name is Jenny Harrison and my writing career started in 1997 in South Africa with Debbie's Story, which to my astonishment, became a bestseller. Thinking this was going to be an easy route to fame and fortune, I continued writing after migrating to New Zealand. Alas, the road to a bestseller is rife with disappointment but that didn't stop me from writing a bunch of paranormal and humorous novels. Circumstances led me to writing about families caught up in World War II. I don’t write about battles or generals, I write about ordinary people who face the unimagined cost of war and survive.
Social worker, Irene Sendler went into the Warsaw Ghetto, her job ostensibly as a public health specialist. The Jewish inmates allowed her to take their children out of the ghetto and to safety. She ultimately rescued several thousand children, down sewers, through abandoned buildings, and sometimes in her large medical bag. She kept the names of all rescued children in a glass bottle under an apple tree so that, at the end of the war, those Jewish mothers who survived would be reunited with their children. Her heroism is inspiring.
For desperate families trapped inside the Warsaw ghetto in 1942 with small children, one name was whispered urgently. It was the name of a young social worker in her thirties with the courage to take staggering risks and to save over 2,000 of those children from death and deportation.
Granted access to the ghetto as a public health specialist, Irena Sendler began by smuggling orphaned children out of the walled district and convincing her friends and neighbours to hide them. Soon, she began the perilous work of going from door to door and asking Jewish families to trust her with…
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
This was the first book to bring in one place the Palestinian narrative after years of denying it and allowing only the Israeli/Zionist narrative to dominate both the public and the scholarly domains in the West. Said's elegant prose contributed made that history accessible to a large audience of readers.
This original and deeply provocative book was the first to make Palestine the subject of a serious debate--one that remains as critical as ever. With the rigorous scholarship he brought to his influential Orientalism and an exile's passion (he is Palestinian by birth), Edward W. Said traces the fatal collision between two peoples in the Middle East and its repercussions in the lives of both the occupier and the occupied--as well as in the conscience of the West. He has updated this landmark work to portray the changed status of Palestine and its people in light of such developments as…
I'm a Communication professor at Fresno Pacific University and former Fulbright grantee to Jordan. Growing up in west Texas I was always fascinated with other countries. I encountered Arabic in college, and I quickly fell in love with a language and society that reminded me so much of my home—in fact, the word “haboob” is used by Texas farmers and Bedouin herders alike to describe a violent dust storm. While I was teaching English in Amman, I realized how much I enjoy learning how different cultures come to understand one another. My driving passion is to explore the centuries-long rhetorical history tying Americans and Middle Easterners together in mutual webs of (mis)representation, and this topic has never been more relevant than today.
The Arab-Israeli conflict can be bewildering for many Americans to wrap their head around. While there are a number of excellent books on the topic, I find Perceptions of Palestine to be a helpful, engaging diagnosis of the issue from a U.S. diplomatic perspective. Christison, a former CIA officer, provides an exhaustively researched and well-informed answer to the question of why the United States tends to favor Israel over the Palestinians in the realms of public opinion and policymaking. This account is both sensitive to the struggles of the Palestinian people while also recognizing the real-world limitations of American policymakers. No matter one’s position on this issue, Christion’s book provides a welcome analysis of the tensions at play in conflicts over Israel-Palestine.
For most of the twentieth century, considered opinion in the United States regarding Palestine has favored the inherent right of Jews to exist in the Holy Land. That Palestinians, as a native population, could claim the same right has been largely ignored. Kathleen Christison's controversial new book shows how the endurance of such assumptions, along with America's singular focus on Israel and general ignorance of the Palestinian point of view, has impeded a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Christison begins with the derogatory images of Arabs purveyed by Western travelers to the Middle East in the nineteenth century, including Mark…
I am a rabbi and educator who lives in the midst of a large Jewish community and a large Muslim community. But up until about 10 or so years ago, I had no Muslim friends. My wife and I set out to change that. (She formed the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom and I benefited as a plus one.) I am also the author of nearly 100 books, a growing number of which are for children and some focus on the relationship between Muslims and Jews.
A young adult novel that has all the ingredients for a good book: mystery, intrigue, humor, and a powerful ending. And this one has fantasy built into it too.
Two young girls—one Muslim, one Jewish—are called hateful names at school. The Jewish girl’s grandmother gives the kids a box full of buttons, one of which gives them the ability to travel back in time and save one of the Muslim girl’s ancestors.
As a result, the Golden Age of Spain is born where Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully and productively.
After Jewish fifth-grader Ava and her Muslim best friend Nadeem are called hateful names at school, Ava's Granny Buena rummages in her closet and pulls out a glittering crystal button box. It's packed with buttons that generations of Ava's Sephardic ancestors have cherished. With the help of Granny's mysterious cat Sheba, Ava and Nadeem discover that a button from the button box will take them back in time. Suddenly, they are in ancient Morocco, where Nadeem's ancestor, Prince Abdur Rahman, is running for his life. Can Ava and Nadeem help the prince escape to Spain and fulfill his destiny, creating…
