Naomi Shihab Nye Books

I am a huge fan of Ms. Nye's work. I write poetry for children myself, so I am always looking for new work for kids that is unique (there seems to be an inundation, currently, in the children's market, of mediocre poetry) - I knew I couldn't go wrong with "Come With Me". This is what poetry is all about - taking the simple, the everyday, and turning it into something astounding! In this book, Ms. Nye makes even the smallest of journeys (a word as it travels from mouth to ear)wondrous. How different these trips will now seem to us.
Each poem will leave a "Wow..." in your throat, and a great desire to explore your world, to discover the all the words to describe it. (And Mr. Yaccarino's ilustrations are bold, vivid - a perfect compliment.)

Besides Nye's breathtaking poems, the illustrations in Come With Me: Poems for a Journey are amazing. Dan Yaccarina fills Nye's book with spectacular images that amaze the eyes and bedazzle the senses. Yaccarina's use of color, shape, and texture help make Nye's creation a masterpiece.

Nye's poetry is marvelously crafted and stirs the soul. The language is appropiate for young children, ensuring children can appreciate and connect to Nye's beautifully worded poetry.

Synchronicity is when you are with a company called BuzZen and your favorite poet writes a book called Honeybee. It arrived today and I have spent the day savoring it.

"Watch us humans as we enter our rooms,remove our shoes and watches, and stretch out on the bed with a single good book. It's the honey of the mind time. Light shines through our little jars."

Bees Were Better

"In college people were always breaking up.
We broke up in parking lots,
beside fountains.
Two people broke up
across the table from me
at the library.
I could not sit at that table again
though I did not know them.
I studied bees, who were able
to convey messages through dancing
and could find their ways
home to their hives
even if someone put up a blockade of sheets
and boards and wire.
Bees had radar in their wings and brains
that humans could barely understand.
I wrote a paper proclaiming
their brilliance and superiority
and revised it at a small cafe
featuring wooden hive-shaped honey dippers
in silver honeypots
on every table."

Part of me feels as though I should include a disclaimer when I write about a new book by Naomi, but that is silly -- she is not really my cousin; it just feels that way, having been lucky enough over the years to spend tiny bits of time around her and receive the occasional note that always carries with it a peacefulness like that which I experience upon reading correspondence from Tony, my eldest cousin on my Sicilian side. As I've written previously, Naomi is a fellow Piscian and fellow vegetarian whom I've seen deftly transform a cardboard convention center room into a sacred space with simply a basket of pita, a bowl of hummus, and a book of poetry.

I read and admire a lot of poetry for children and adolescents. I am quite often entertained by it and always share it at booktalks -- including some pieces I first read as a child.

I find something so special in getting to spend an afternoon reading Naomi's work.

HONEYBEE is Naomi's new collection of poetry. Each of the eighty-two poems has a wonderful personal quality; the collection reads as if it is a series of notes in various poetic forms that she has written to the reader.

"...My niece in Australia told me that the students in her university class were required to read the blog of an Iraqi citizen and write about it before they could graduate. She chose a girl who is now fifteen writing under the pseudonym Sunshine. I began reading Sunshine's blog too. I love the way she writes about the details of her life-her friends, the books she is reading, her activities and memories. Life is so difficult since the war started, but still she ends her entries with lines like, 'Try not to lose hope.' She wishes she could live the way kids in other countries live, without so much constant violence surrounding them. Sunshine has become my personal hero, drinking deeply out of the moments. So much is passing so fast..."

This is a bittersweet collection, as Naomi is clearly feeling the pain -- like so many of us -- that continues to be the product of five years of war and war spending. It is also a collection that repeatedly alludes to bees and to the mysterious and well-publicized disappearance of a lot of honeybees in a very short time:

"All the theories about the disappearing bees omit one possibility: they are sick of the word 'busy.' They are on strike. Sure this cycling and collecting and producing is what they've done for so long...worker and queen and drone...blossom and hive and comb... but the last thing the bees want stuck in their pollen baskets is a cliche. Busy? Not I. We can't even know if they adore the fragrances of flowers...but they must, right? Let's hope so. Let's hope there's pleasure in it.

In France, some teenagers asked me, 'Is it true, in your country, students don't take time to sit down and drink tea and eat pie upon return from school?'

Eat pie? This was hard to answer.

'I hope they eat pie,' I said. We all need pie.'
Then I started looking for a restaurant that served pie..."

I, myself, headed for the funky little cafe in Sebastopol where my teenage daughter works after school. I spent the afternoon there, with Rosemary bringing me iced herbal tea and little vegetable sandwiches, and Naomi talking to me through her book, bringing me up to date on her life and observations as one of our most treasured poets.

"And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in."

I highly recommend that you find a nice place to spend an afternoon and experience HONEYBEE.

"What countries may we/ sing into?/ What lines should we all/ be crossing?" Naomi Shihab Nye writes poems of grace and humor and wit and tension and ache and remembrance and longing - and of everyday life. Such a sweep of huge ideas comes from her intelligent pen! Living in San Antonio, Texas with her child encourages her to observe the fundamentals of living, of loving, of finding the beauty/spiritual in all things. These poems of Part One of this extraordinary collection are about living.

Part Two contains the poetry that speaks most clearly to this reader. While she is always competent to address the darker side of all things in her poems of Part One, in this second body of work she turns her vigilant eye to the horrors of war, giving words to the overwhelming facts of tragedy, death, inequity, and all the unimaginables that escort war in the Middle East - no, in all wars. "There is no 'stray' bullet, sirs./ No bullet like a worried cat/ crouching under a bush,/ no half-hairless puppy bullet/ dodging midnight streets. The bullet could not be a pecan/ plunking the tin roof,/ not hardly, no fluff of pollen/ on October's breath, no humble pebble at our feet....So don't gentle it, please....This bullet had no secret happy hopes,/ it was not singing to itself with eyes closed/ under the bridge." Perhaps it is her Palestinian-American heritage that makes her insight into the ongoing elegy for the Middle East so poignant, or perhaps it is simply that she is a very fine poet, a seer able to paste together the minutiae of living each day with the epoch of facing war head on. She has the gift and we are the better for it. Grady Harp, September 05

I met NSN through Bill Moyer's The Language of Life series and have been a fan ever since. She is a poetry superstar, but she's not the sort of poetry superstar you'd put on a pedastal. She's the kind you'd invite into you kitchen to talk about current events on a truly fundamental, human level -- over a cup of Turkish coffee. As a poet, I truly appreciate the fact that so much of her poetry is about words, the power of simple words, the systematic public abuse of common words. As a Lebanese American, NSN helps me to look on the Middle East at one remove, like her, and with compassion. Her poetry shows why, if we have only one thing clutched in our hands at the very end of everything, it should be our basic humanity. Now, wouldn't you want someone like that to talk to in your kitchen over coffee? In a conversation that would be all poetry, no less?

Hopkins said that poetry is an out shaping of the interiority of human experience. This is certainly true here. There are realities that are at the heart of human experience that cannot be captured in prose. The heart of mush of the experience of Palestinian people can be found in these poems. For those who want to understand beyond the linear logic of prose and the bias of news, this book is a good place to start.

This is a wonderful collection of poetry that would be ideal for someone wanting to sample poetry or perhaps give as a gift. There is something in the 300 plus poems by 94 of America's best poets that will appeal to virtually any reader remotely interested in poetry. The reader can sample the works of both well known poets like Philip Levine, Ruth L. Schwartz, and Billy Collins as well as lesser known but highly regarded one's such as Tracy K. Smith, Nick Flynn, and Joy Katz. The subjects addressed run the gambit from love, desire, death, and family relationships to a host of other offerings that make this a literal poetry feast of some of the best of the best in contemporary American poetry. A major offering that is sure to delight.

Haunting, thoughtful, challenging poetry that created worlds of human experience in war.

This latest book by Naomi Shihab Nye is warm and funny and endlessly entertaining. It is always such a pleasure to be in the company of Naomi Nye as she looks at our world. In this collection of vignettes, Naomi takes us traveling across the US and around the world. From the back seats of taxis and the lobbies of hotels we encounter peculiar, heartwarming and just plan wacky taxi drivers and clerks. Human nature is the subject and in the hands of Ms. Nye it is fascinating. I recommend the friendship between a cat and his driver in San Antonio.
Irresistable.

Naomi Shihab Nye is an excellent poet. This childrens book has depth and poetic style that will please the adult reading it and challenge the imagination of the child.

I admit, I don't know too much about Palestinian culture aside from a highschool MUN event, but I was touched and appreciative of this book that combines modern and old culture as well as that wonderful bond of sisterhood between generations. The illustrations are gorgeous.

Sitti's Secrets presents a loving long-distance relationship between a little girl and her presumably Palestinian grandmother.

My kids liked it and the message is beautiful. The ending is somewhat lost on younger children but may be a good discussion book for third grade and up.

I read this book to my 7th graders when we studied Palestine and Isreal in social studies class. It touches on many issues such as differences and similarities, cultures, environment, and politics. I recommend it to all that are trying to make our world smaller and wiser.

I knew I'd love this book before I received it just from its description. It tells the story, based on the true-life experience of the author, of Mona, a little girl brought up in America in a Palestinian family who visits her parents' homeland in Palestine. She and her grandma (siti in Arabic) grow close although they do not speak the same language. I felt sad that this little girl had not received the rich gift of the language of her heritage. I taught my children to speak Spanish as their first language though I am American and we live in the USA. It is a gift I could not deny them as their fathers are of Hispanic origin. I never wanted them to find themselves in such a situation as little Mona, longing to share things with her distant family but struggling because of the barrier of language. With her grandma and with the neighborhood Arab children, Mona finds her own way of communicating and learns that sometimes it is not necessary to share a language to be able to share special moments with others.
This book depicts the peaceful life of a family in Palestine amid the turmoil that they have endured, but very subtly. When the little girl returns home, she writes a letter to the American president expressing her wish for peace and adds that she knows her grandma wishes the same. Each night, as she falls asleep, she connects with her grandma who she misses by thinking of the sun that leaves her side of the world now warming the land where her grandma lives. I wish we could all feel a connection with every human being on this earth as being just a sunrise away.

I found this anthology wonderfully refreshing, and very validating. It gives affirmation to the intense emotional endeavor of raising a young man, and allows a communal feeling with other mothers on the same journey. The stories are poignantly shared, and are passionately detailed. I recommend this book to any Mother raising a son!

Perhaps this collection resonated more deeply with me than other reviewers because I consider myself a feminist *and* a mother of two spirited sons. My eldest son is only five years old and his nemesis/favorite person in the known universe a mere three and a half, but this rich book struck a chord deep within me that has not been played enough as a busy mother. I couldn't get enough of these esays. I am still hungry for more, so I pick up my pen and write a little bit everyday now.

As with many short story / essay collections, it is hard to review the book overall as the individual contributions are uneven.
In this case, almost all are moving and at least some will touch a heartstring (or raw nerve!) in every mother.
Many play the feminist angle, which I felt may be somewhat misplaced in a mother-son relationship.
A couple I'd already read in other collections (e.g. `Toddler'), including one of my personal favourites, Jonathan Bing by Priscilla Leigh MacKinley, about a mother who lost her sight during childbirth and has to adapt to becoming blind and the responsibility of responsibility of caring for a new baby at the same time ... the thought alone makes me shudder, but she writes about it beautifully and it was a joy to read again.
All-in-all, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

I bought Between Mothers and Sons for myself as a Mother's Day gift when my son was 3 months old. I was moved viscerally by the essays contained in this book. Although I do agree with the reviewer from Wisconsin that the collective voice of these essays is limited, I feel that the emotional tumult felt and expressed by these very talented women is universal.

Each in her own way, the writers in this collection make complex connections -- with their sons and with readers. There's a great range of experiences here for the reader who wants to concentrate on the mother-son relationship rather than on family relationships in general.

I sometimes cried and more often laughed -- but I also thought about my female friends and their sons, and agreed with what I was reading -- then remembered my mother and sisters and their sons, and argued back -- considered my male friends, and understood more than I had before.

The authors had some great stories to tell, and the quality of the writing fully repaid a second (and for some essays, a third) reading. The author's own very moving contribution was my favorite, but months after reading the book, there are many moments I remember.