Read and Shine » moving

A mysterious and noteworthy place, the Middle East has not always been viewed favorably. However, as the birthplace of modern civilization, the Middle East has shaped modern society. The books in this list are selected for young adult readers and feature authors and characters from and settings within the Middle East. Realistic fiction and fantasy tell stories that connect young adult readers of all backgrounds with this unique part of the world.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	Does My Head Look Big in This? By: Randa Abdel-Fattah Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be challenging enough. Still, it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, full-time as a badge of her faith—without losing her identity or sense of style.
	Down and Across By: Arvin Ahmadi His friends know what they want to do with the rest of their lives, but Scott Ferdowsi can hardly commit to a breakfast cereal, let alone a passion. With his parents pushing him to settle on a “practical” career, Scott sneaks off to Washington, DC, seeking guidance from a famous psychologist who claims to know the secret to success. He meets Fiora Buchanan, a ballsy college student whose life ambition is to write crossword puzzles. Now Scott is sneaking into bars, attempting to pick up girls at the National Zoo, and even giving the crossword thing a try. Will he be able to find out who he is—and who he wants to be?
	An Ember in the Ashes By: Sabaa Tahir Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire’s greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars claiming that they will help save her brother from execution.
	A Girl Like That By: Tanaz Bhathena In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, sixteen-year-old half-Hindu/half-Parsi Zarin Wadia is the class troublemaker and top subject for the school rumor blogs, regularly leaving class to smoke cigarettes in cars with boys. Still, she also desperately wants to grow up and move out of her aunt and uncle’s house, perhaps realizing too late that Porus, another non-Muslim Indian who risks deportation but remains devoted to Zarin, could help her escape.
	The Glass Collector By: Anna Perera A fifteen-year-old boy lives amongst the rubbish piles in Cairo’s slums and collects broken glass while hoping to find a future he can believe in.
	Habibi By: Naomi Shihab Nye Fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born. There, they face many changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.
	Mirage By: Somaiya Daud In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, sixteen-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 she, too, will have adventure and travel one day beyond her isolated moon. 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’s fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear, and one wrong move could lead to her death.
	Rebel of the Sands By: Alwyn Hamilton Amani is desperate to leave the dead-end town of Dustwalk, and she’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to help her escape. But after she meets Jin, the mysterious rebel running from the Sultan’s army, she unlocks the powerful truth about the desert nation of Miraji…and herself.
	Rebels by Accident By: Patricia Dunn Mariam, a troubled teenage Egyptian American, is sent to live with her grandmother in Cairo. There, she meets Asmaa, a girl who calls Egypt’s people to protest against their president. Now Mariam finds herself in the middle of a revolution and falling in love for the first time.
	A Very Large Expanse of Sea By: Tahereh Mafi A year after 9/11, Muslim teenager Shirin has completely withdrawn from social life until she meets Ocean James in her biology class and is tempted to actually let her guard down.
	We Hunt the Flame By: Hafsah Faizal Zafira, who disguises herself as a man to become The Hunter, and Nasir, an assassin for his father, the sultan, are both seeking a lost artifact that could return magic to their cursed world.
	Where the Streets Had a Name By: Randa Abdel-Fattah Thirteen-year-old Hayaat of Bethlehem faces checkpoints, curfews, and the travel permit system designed to keep people on the West Bank when she attempts to go to her grandmother’s ancestral home in Jerusalem with her best friend.

Whether a family is moving down the street or across the ocean, moving can be a challenging experience. This collection of books is for children ages 8-12 who are going to be moving soon or are adjusting to a new city and new life.
Contributed by: Mary Lanni

	The Kid in the Red Jacket By: Barbara Park When ten-year-old Howard has to move with his family to a distant state, he is forced to live on a street named Chester Pewe, adjust to a new school, and get used to being shadowed by the little girl in a nearby house.
	Back to School, Mallory By: Laurie B. Friedman Illustrated by: Tamara Schmitz After moving, eight-year-old Mallory struggles with being new at school, especially because her mother is now the music teacher and director of the third-grade play.
	Lost and Found By: Andrew Clements Illustrated by: Mark Elliott Twelve-year-old identical twins Jay and Ray have long resented that everyone treats them as one person, and so they hatch a plot to take advantage of a clerical error at their new school and pretend they are just one.
	Ghosts By: Raina Telgemeier Catrina and her family have moved to the coast of Northern California for the sake of her little sister, Maya, who has cystic fibrosis–and Cat is even less happy about the move when she is told that her new town is inhabited by ghosts, and Maya sets her heart on meeting one.
	Anastasia, Again! By: Lois Lowry Anastasia is hesitant to accept new surroundings when her family moves, but she soon learns moving means not only saying good-bye, but also making new friends.
	The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day By: Stan & Jan Berenstain The Bear family decides it is time to move to a larger house.
	Who Will be my Friends? By: Syd Hoff Freddy moves to a new community, where he makes many new friends.
	Hey, New Kid! By: Betsy Duffey Illustrated by: Ellen Thompson Third-grader Jeremy dreads going to a new school when his family moves, so he decides to reinvent himself, hoping his new classmates will be impressed.
	Amber Brown is Not a Crayon By: Paula Danziger Illustrated by: Ellen Thompson The year she is in the third grade is a sad time for Amber because her best friend Justin is getting ready to move to a distant state.
	The Deadlies: Felix Takes the Stage By: Kathryn Lasky Illustrated by: Stephen Gilpin Having been discovered, a family of poisonous but friendly brown recluse spiders must flee their cozy home in a symphony hall and go searching for a new place to live.
	Moving Day By: Meg Cabot Nine-year-old Allie Finkle has rules for everything and is even writing her own rule book, but her world is turned upside-down when she learns that her family is moving across town, which will mean a new house, school, best friend, and plenty of new rules.
	A Long Line of Cakes By: Deborah Wiles Aurora County, Mississippi, is only the latest stop on the Cakes’ nomadic lifestyle, opening bakeries where ever they go; but Emma Alabama Lane Cake (only girl of the six Cake children) is sick of it, and determined not to form any friendships here because they will just disappear as soon as the family moves again–but Aurora County has other ideas, and so does a girl named Ruby Lavender who plans to teach Emma a thing or two about friendship.
	Moving Day By: Fran Manushkin Illustrated by: Tammie Lyon When Katie Woo’s family moves, she is sad about leaving her room to a stranger, and even more concerned that the new house will never feel like home.
	Moving Days By: Mark Harshman Illustrated by: Wendy Popp As he and his parents prepare to move from the country to the city, a boy shares memories about the old house they are leaving and his worries about their new home.
	Tim’s Big Move By: Anke Wagner Pico, a stuffed dog, worries that he will not like the new house when his owner tells him they are moving to a new town.
	We are Moving By: Mercer Mayer When Mom and Dad tell Little Critter they have exciting news, he thinks they mean getting a dog–not moving to a new house! Will he be able to bring his sandbox? What if he has to go to a new school full of bullies? What if his new next-door neighbors are monsters? Eventually, Little Critter learns moving is not so bad after all.
	See You Later, Alligator By: Sally Hopgood Illustrated by: Emma Levey A friendly tortoise stops to say good-bye to so many friends that he might miss his opportunity to leave for his big adventure.
	The Good-Pie Party By: Elizabeth Garton Scanlon Illustrated by: Kady Macdonald Denton Posy Peyton and her friends are very sad that she will be moving away, but when they try to cheer themselves up by baking a pie, they realize that Posy’s leaving does not have to mean saying goodbye.
	A New House By: Melanie Joyce Fred, Jess, Arthur, and Betty pack their belongings and move to a new house.
	Alexander, Who’s Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to Move By: Judith Viorst Illustrated by: Robin Preiss-Glasser Alexander is not going to move. His mom, dad and two brothers are packing for the move, but Alexander insists he will not join them. He reluctantly says goodbye to his favorite people and favorite places, and finally comes around. The story is told entirely from Alexander’s point of view, in a stream-of-consciousness dialogue.

Mustafa
By: Marie-Louise Gay
Reviewer: Uma Krishnaswami

Simple, elegant, and deeply child-centered, this is the story of how Mustafa, a child refugee from an unnamed country in crisis, finds a friend in his new home. The country he arrives in is unnamed as well. The setting is urban, offering the relief of a green park safe enough for a child to venture into on his own. The delight of this book lies in its close adherence to its small hero’s perspective, both in the choice of words and in the finely rendered multi-media illustrations. The new world is so different from the one Mustafa has left, and there is so much here that seems incomprehensible. Slowly, his terrible experiences of war and brokenness find expression when he draws in the sand. Drawings become the vehicle as well for the first overture of friendship from a girl who is only named on the very last two-page spread. At first Mustafa hesitates to respond and that, too, is perfectly pitched. Every detail is placed with painstaking intention, leaving plenty of room for interpretation by a child reader. It seems no coincidence that music is an element of both Mustafa’s initial invisibility, his foreignness, and his ultimate recognition. Clear, simple dialogue, repetition, and a child’s eye for the small details of setting lead cumulatively from confusion and distrust to the healing warmth of friendship. Gay manages to shine a loving light on many facets of a new immigrant’s experience—not only on how children cope with the traumas of displacement but also where the ingredients of comfort might be found.

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