★★★★★ 5
This gorgeous MG novel in verse is a MUST READ!
Format: Hardcover, Format: Hardcover
Words cannot adequately express how much Jordanian-American author Jasmine Warga’s novel “Other Words for Home” means to me.
Growing up, I never read stories about people like me or families like my own because they simply didn’t exist. Books with Arab and/or Arab-American characters, being wholly human, navigating issues of identity and belonging, interrogating what “home” means were never written. Too bad.
I’m elated that that’s changing, though, and that there are Arab-Americans who are writing these stories *with such immense skill and heart.*
This is the first middle grade novel I’ve read in literally decades and it just encouraged me to order many more. It is poetic and hopeful and so thoughtfully written. I can barely remember the last time I loved a character as much as I love brave and precious Jude.
I cried and cheered many times along this journey.
Seriously, if you work with middle graders, have middle graders, or are a lover of children’s literature yourself—YOU MUST check out this gorgeous novel in verse.
The only downside (and it's a big one) is that it ends.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2021
