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Title details for The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan - Wait list

The Lemon Tree

An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

by Sandy Tolan
Rami Medina
Audiobook
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The tale of friendship between two people, one Israeli and one Palestinian, that symbolizes the hope for peace in the Middle East. "Makes an incredibly complicated topic comprehensible."—School Library Journal In 1967, a twenty-five-year-old refugee named Bashir Khairi traveled from the Palestinian hill town of Ramallah to Ramla, Israel, with a goal: to see the beloved stone house with the lemon tree in its backyard that he and his family had been forced to leave nineteen years earlier. When he arrived, he was greeted by one of its new residents: Dalia Eshkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student whose family had fled Europe following the Holocaust. She had lived in that house since she was eleven months old. On the stoop of this shared house, Dalia and Bashir began a surprising friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and later tested as political tensions ran high and Israelis and Palestinians each asserted their own right to live on this land. Adapted from the award-winning adult book and based on Sandy Tolan's extensive research and reporting, The Lemon Tree is a deeply personal story of two people seeking hope, transformation, and home.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 3, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781547607624
      • File size: 135742 KB
      • Duration: 04:42:47

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This portrayal of two real families, one Jewish, the other Arab, is living history that someone will surely turn into a documentary. It reveals the parallel and divergent lives of Bashir and Dalia, both struggling since the 1940s through the bloody clashes in and around what is now Jewish Israel. Tolan's well-documented nonfiction explores the very souls of Bashir and Dalia--tortured, conflicted, proud, and hopeful, but rarely cheerful. That's why Tolan's voice is not the best fit for his own rich writing. He reads too fast and is too perky to perform this grave chapter in Middle Eastern history. A professional reader could make this an audio award winner. D.J.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • School Library Journal

      April 1, 2022

      Gr 7 Up-"I wanted to write a history book in disguise," journalist and professor Tolan announces, "and to make it feel, throughout, like a good novel. Even though the story is true." Tolan voiced his original; here Rami Medina makes his audiobook debut: his rich, youthful voice hints at an indeterminable slight accent drawing listeners into an absorbing performance. Medina moves effortlessly between the two protagonists-Palestinian Arab Bashir and Israeli Jew Dalia-transcending gender and age as decades pass through Tolan's chapters. In 1967, almost 20 years after being forced to flee, Bashir Khairi knocked on the door of his ancestral home and was greeted by Dalia Eshkenazi, whose family had moved in when she was 11 months old. That shared home, "against all odds," will inspire a lasting friendship. VERDICT Over a decade and a half after his 2006 international bestseller, Tolan's young readers adaptation-enhanced by newbie Medina-succeeds again as gripping storytelling.

      Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 27, 2006
      The title of this moving, well-crafted book refers to a tree in the backyard of a home in Ramla, Israel. The home is currently owned by Dalia, a Jewish woman whose family of Holocaust survivors emigrated from Bulgaria. But before Israel gained its independence in 1948, the house was owned by the Palestinian family of Bashir, who meets Dalia when he returns to see his family home after the Six-Day War of 1967. Journalist Tolan (Me & Hank
      ) traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the parallel personal histories of Dalia and Bashir and their families—all refugees seeking a home. As Tolan takes the story forward, Dalia struggles with her Israeli identity, and Bashir struggles with decades in Israeli prisons for suspected terrorist activities. Those looking for even a symbolic magical solution to that conflict won't find it here: the lemon tree dies in 1998, just as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stagnates. But as they follow Dalia and Bashir's difficult friendship, readers will experience one of the world's most stubborn conflicts firsthand. 2 maps.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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