‘One Green Apple' Wins Arab American National Museum Book Award
RSSSLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 08/27/2007
The story of a Muslim girl on a class trip to an apple orchard has won the inaugural Arab American National Museum Book Award for children's/YA literature. One Green Apple (Clarion, 2007) by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Ted Lewin, (reviewed last year by SLJ), tells the story of the immigrant girl Farah, who, because of her lack of English and her head scarf, feels isolated among her schoolmates.
Her field trip to the orchard, however, reminds Farah of many happy experiences from home; and the green apple she mistakenly throws into the cider press alongside the ripe ones tossed by classmates serves as a metaphor for the joys of diversity.
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) Book Award “encourages the publication and excellence of books that preserve and advance the understanding, knowledge and resources of the Arab American community by celebrating the thoughts and lives of Arab Americans,” says a press statement from the AANM, based in Dearborn, MI, home to one of the nation's largest Arab/Muslim communities.
Adult titles on the winners list, all from 2006, include non-fiction winner The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood )Beacon) by Rashid Khalidi; fiction winner In the Country of Men (Dial) by Hisham Matar; non-fiction honorable mention The Arab Americans (Greenwood) by Rafnda A. Kayyali; and adult non-fiction winner "Evil" Arabs in American Popular Film: Orientalist Fear (University of Texas Press) by Tim Jon Semmerling. Winners were chosen by a committee of authors, university professors, and artists.
"This award program is the first of its kind for Arab Americans," says Gregory Orfalea, author of The Arab Americans: A History (Interlink, 2005). "It's important because this ethnic group has had particularly pronounced difficulties in getting published by mainstream literary presses…this award highlights the renaissance of a branch of American literature that's really been coming into flower in the last ten years."
Celine Taminian, manager of educational and public programming for the AANM, who served as a judge for the children's award, called One Green Apple "a great step toward bridging the gap between Arabs and the Western world because it's about acceptance of others who dress or speak differently. It's also a great step [because it's] aimed at young children, in hopes of achieving a dialgue and mutual understanding leading to understanding."
Nominations for the 2007 Arab American Book Award are being accepted through next February 1.. Information is located online.Click on "Library & Resource Center." Or contact Angelita Espino at 313-624-0224.
