Sitti's Secrets [Hardcover]

Naomi Shihab Nye (Author), Nancy Carpenter (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1994 | Age Level: 4 and up

When Mona, a young Arab-American girl, journeys with her father to the Middle East to meet her grandmother, Sitti, for the first time, she discovers that, despite the differences in their lives, they share the universal bonds of family love.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-When Mona travels from her home in the U.S. to visit her grandmother's small Palestinian village on the West Bank, she must rely on her father to translate at first, but soon she and Sitti are communicating perfectly. With verve and a childlike sense of wonder, Mona relates some of the sights, sounds, and tastes she is introduced to as well as "the secrets" she learns from spending time in the wise, elderly woman's company. Upon her return home, Mona writes to the president describing the woman and expressing her concerns about the situation in her homeland. "I vote for peace. My grandmother votes with me." says Mona. The simple, poetic text is accompanied by exquisitely rendered mixed-medium paintings. They are suffused with the light and colors of the desert, and incorporate subtle and evocative collage touches. A story about connections that serves as a thoughtful, loving affirmation of the bonds that transcend language barriers, time zones, and national borders.
Luann Toth, School Library Journal
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ages 4-8. Sitti means grandmother in Arabic, and in this lyrical picture book an American child misses her grandmother who lives in a Palestinian village "on the other side of the earth." The child remembers when she visited Sitti. They didn't speak the same language: at first they talked through her father, who spoke both English and Arabic, and then they invented their own language with signs and hums and claps. She remembers the house and the countryside, the culture and the clothes, and the intimacy of brushing Sitti's hair. She also remembers the painful leave-taking ("Even my father kept blowing his nose and walking outside"), and back in the U.S., she writes a letter to the President: "If the people of the United States could meet Sitti, they'd like her, for sure." Carpenter's paintings show the physical bond between child and grandmother when they're close and their imaginary connection when they're far away from each other. Like the human embrace, the pictures flow with soft curving lines of clothes and hills, birds and sky, all part of the circle of the rolling earth. There are too few books like this one about Arabs and Arab Americans as people. Nye edited the powerful global poetry collection for older readers, This Same Sky (1992); that title applies here, too, showing that "people are far apart, but connected." Every child who longs for a distant grandparent will recognize the feeling. Hazel Rochman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0027684601
• ISBN-13: 978-0027684605
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,790,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye, poet, essayist, anthologist, has been a recipient of writing fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Witter Bynner Foundation/Library of Congress. Author of more than twenty volumes, her recent books inc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than just a childrens book, January 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Sitti's Secrets (Aladdin Picture Books) (Paperback)

This is an amazing book. While superficially it is a gentle childrens tale about a girl living in two cultures, it is, on another level, tremendously emotive. I am not given to being affected emotionally by poetry or films, but when reading this book to my daughter for the first time, I choked up halfway through and was unable to finish it until after I took a break. It is not sad,but really works at a deep level to evoke long dormant emotions. A truly 'magical' book-great illustrations, too.We have bought twenty or more copies of this book for family, friends, libraries...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Connecting Generations and Cultures, September 30, 2005

By 

Janet Ma'ly "Embracing the World" (Chicago area, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sitti's Secrets (Aladdin Picture Books) (Paperback)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Jewel of a story, November 26, 2002

By 

Charlotte E. Cerne "cec62053" (goochland, va United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sitti's Secrets (Aladdin Picture Books) (Paperback)

I bought Sitti's Secret about 10 years ago in D.C. I have read it to every one of my four children's kindergarten classes, crying each time. It shows the love of family and the misunderstanding of the world. The art work and the deepness of words are outstanding. I just read it to my youngest child's class and the emotions swelled again.