by Ibtisam Barakat
2007
Tasting the Sky is a memoir of a Palestinian childhood. It is divided into three sections. In the first section, the author recounts an incident that occurred when was a teenager taking the bus from her home outside of Ramallah into the city to access her post office box where she receives letters from pen pals all over the world. The bus is stopped by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint and everyone has to exit the bus and enter a holding center. Eventually she is allowed to reboard the bus, but no one is allowed to go to Ramallah that day. Terrified, because one of the soldiers told her that "Ramallah no longer exists," and because she witnesses the unprovoked hitting of a teenage boy, Ibtisam begins to reflect on her earlier years, which leads to the second part of the book.
As a three-year-old child, Ibtisam almost gets left behind as her parents flee their home during the Six-Day War. This begins a four-month odyssey in which Ibtisam and her family wander from one refuge to another in Jordan. Their first refuge is a farmhouse they share with several other fleeing families. Then they live in an apartment with another family, then a school that is a refugee center, and then an apartment near a marketplace. Eventually they are allowed to return to their home near Ramallah, but find that the land all around them is a training ground for soldiers.
They move to a place closer to town, and this leads to the third part of this book, which is a plea for peace and understanding among all peoples, for the sake of the children, if nothing else.
This is a moving and affecting memoir that raised my consciousness about the situation of the Palestinians and really destroyed some stereotypical ideas I had about them. This a "pro-peace" book that would be a good start to any discussion on the Middle East situation.
Find this book at the Martinsburg Public Library with the call number J 956.95 B224.
Marian
Librarian
Martinsburg Public Library
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