Tandem Team

  • Mindy
    Mindy is a librarian (MLS '01) with a background in working with teens. She loves to read all over the map and has been blogging about books since 2003.
  • Vanessa
    Vanessa is a teacher who is nearing completion of her MS Ed. degree from the University of Minnesota. She especially enjoys humorous picture books.
  • Anne
    Anne is a librarian (MLS '02) who has worked in publishing and libraries for 11 years. She loves YA fantasy, historical fiction, and chick lit.
  • Kelly
    Kelly is a teacher with experience in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and abroad. She is always looking for books with classroom connections!
  • Emily
    Emily is a librarian (MLS '02) who has worked in school libraries and a children’s literature collection at a university. She particularly enjoys realistic fiction and stories about traveling.
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March 17, 2008

Book of the Week: Tasting the Sky

Tastingthesky “The small girl
I once was
Sings out this story.”

To three-year-olds fear is darkness or strangers or thunderstorms.  For three-year-old Ibtisam Barakat, fear was felt in every inch of her small body as her family had to suddenly evacuate as war broke out.  She ran barefoot with her family, friends, and neighbors to safety, but in a time of such upheaval, she never really felt safe.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood tells of the fear of living in Palestine in the 1960’s from the perspective of a very young child who, at the time, had little knowledge of why her life was suddenly so different.  The politics stay in the background of this memoir.  Instead we focus on life—childhood, culture, language—in spare and moving prose that sheds new light on what it means to grow up surrounded by war.  What it means to remember when everyone keeps telling her to forget.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books online bookstore.

Posted at 09:25 AM in Books of the Week - High School, Mindy's posts |