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History and Heritage Month Reading Lists

Further suggestions and readings from the library!

Arab Boy Delivered

"As Michael maneuvers through the working-class neighborhood delivering groceries, he enters the homes and lives of his customers. He is confronted by the violence of racist bullies and falls for the radical college coed who teaches him about sex, love, and protest. Michael grieves with the mother whose only son died in the Vietnam War and is embraced by the first black couple who move into the neighborhood. They all shape him, and through the conflict of hate, acts of kindness, and his sexual awakening, Michael struggles to define his identity" --Publisher

Huda F Are You?

"Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl. Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can't rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn't a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She's not the one who knows everything about her religion or the one all the guys like. She's miscellaneous, which makes her feel like no one at all. Until she realizes that it'll take finding out who she isn't to figure out who she is." --Publisher

Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World

"Today's headlines paint the Middle East as a collection of war-torn countries and extremist groups consumed by sectarian rage.  Age of Coexistence reveals a hidden and hopeful story that counters this clichéd portrayal. It shows how a region rich with ethnic and religious diversity created a modern culture of coexistence amid Ottoman reformation, European colonialism, and the emergence of nationalism. Moving from the nineteenth century to the present, this groundbreaking book explores, without denial or equivocation, the politics of pluralism during the Ottoman Empire and in the post-Ottoman Arab world. Rather than judging the Arab world as a place of age-old sectarian animosities, Age of Coexistence describes the forging of a complex system of coexistence, what Makdisi calls the 'ecumenical frame.' He argues that new forms of antisectarian politics, and some of the most important examples of Muslim-Christian political collaboration, crystallized to make and define the modern Arab world." --Publisher

What Strange Paradise

"More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers... And only one has made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials, but of Vänna: a teenage girl, native to the island. ...And though she and the boy are complete strangers, though they don't speak a common language, she's determined to do whatever it takes to save him." --Publisher

This Is What America Looks Like: My Journey from Refugee to Congresswoman

"Faced with the many challenges of being an immigrant and a refugee, [Omar] questioned stereotypes and built bridges with her classmates and in her community. In under two decades she became a grassroots organizer, graduated from college and was elected to congress with a record-breaking turnout by the people of Minnesota-ready to keep pushing boundaries and restore moral clarity in Washington D.C. A beacon of positivity in dark times, Congresswoman Omar has weathered many political storms and yet maintained her signature grace, wit and love of country - all the while speaking up for her beliefs." --Publisher

 

From the Popular Reading Room

 

 

Fiction

Nonfiction

Fantasy and Science Fiction

 

Poetry

Graphic Novels

Cookbooks

 

 

Arab American Law and Academia