A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child's Search for Home features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun!
A young Palestinian girl living in diaspora struggles to find her homeland on a map in this gentle and heartfelt audiobook.
At school, Falasteen and her classmates are tasked with finding their families' home countries on a map, but no matter how hard she looks, Falasteen can't find Palestine.
Can a place exist if it's not on a map? Confused, Falasteen turns to her family for answers. Her grandfather, grandmother, and Mama encourage her to see their homeland from a different perspective, and each of their stories helps her understand her people's history and her own place in the world.
Including thoughtful back matter that outlines key terms and historical moments, this is a story of family, resilience and home always being where the heart is.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
0 of 1 copy available
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 22, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781250365996
- File size: 4434 KB
- Duration: 00:09:14
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from August 19, 2024
Curly-haired Falasteen knows her family is Palestinian, but after her teacher asks students to point out on a map where their family is from, she can’t find Palestine. When she asks why, her teacher responds, “I think there’s no such place.” Back home, Falasteen asks her grandfather the same question. On a notebook page, “he drew little circles and gave life to cities and villages with names she had not heard before.” He hands her the map, saying, “Your teacher needs teaching... your friends can learn too.” Other family members offer more details about the family’s history. Her grandmother describes how she herself ran, carrying Falasteen’s mother and the family’s house key, when soldiers arrived. Mama adds, “There are people who say it doesn’t exist. That we don’t exist. But their maps can’t erase us.” Betawi renders Falasteen’s immediate
surroundings in yellows and oranges that give way to deep-blue remembrances, while Odeh sensitively narrates this double debut about a family’s culture and homeland. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–8. -
Starred review from January 1, 2025
K-Gr 3-A gentle soundtrack enhances Ramahi's empathic narration of Odeh's hauntingly spectacular debut, embodying a Palestinian American girl who won't be erased. Grounding sounds of school, garden, and family add aural substance, deliberately contradicting a teacher's declaration, "I think there's no such place," when young Falasteen can't find Palestine on the classroom map during a family origins activity. At home, her grandpa draws Falasteen a map for a "teacher [who] needs teaching"; grandma gifts Falasteen the iron key to the house she was forced to flee decades prior. Her mother assures, "Palestine lives in you and me." Odeh's illuminating author's note, not included in audio, reveals the story's provenance-her mother's family's tragic 1967 escape from Israeli tanks. VERDICT The ongoing atrocities of the Israel-Hamas war make this urgently necessary for all libraries.
Copyright 2025 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Lyrical music accents this poetic, poignant audiobook, which begins as Falasteen seeks to find her family's country on a map and finds she can't locate Palestine. Narrator Dalia Ramahi voices the girl's confusion, which leads her to speak to family members. Ramahi evokes her grandfather's steadiness as he draws an image-laden map, giving life to various locations. Ramahi reads the grandmother's sorrowful account of the painful history of Palestine. Tenderly yet strongly, Ramahi depicts the girl's mother as she explains that there are "places you don't need to find on a map" and that Palestine "lives in you and me." Ramahi weaves cultural elements gracefully into her narration and sensitively expresses the longing, hope, and strength that give Falasteen a sense of identity. S.W. © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine
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