Naomi Shihab Nye

The Power of Literacy Literature. It is simultaneously a shield against the darkness and an open window that allows new ideas and experiences to float in. Without it, we would have no way to communicate--no way to share our ideas and adventures with others or see those from the past. Literacy is as close as we can get to magic, and it has the power to provide us with humanity, escape, and determination. Literacy gives us great humanity; it gives us knowledge about the world we live in. For one,…

Naomi Shihab Nye’s “One Boy Told Me” scrutinizes the world through the eyes of a toddler. “One Boy Told Me” consists of words and phrases spoken by the author’s son over a two-year span; from these words, Nye wove a poem. The speaker is a two-year old boy, whose world is constantly evolving, developing in ways adults forget to imagine possible. “Kids say the darndest things”, and partly this is because small children say exactly what they are thinking. Toddlers do not know what lying is, or how…

In the essay To Any Would-Be Terrorists written by Nye, Shihab Naomi is related to the current situation of Israel/Palestine for this part of the world. The past conflicts of the situation between Israel and Palestine have been happening for a while for the last decades for example the Palestinian war in 1948 when five Arab nations which were Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt who invaded the territory of former Palestinian mandate, which lead the United Nations to declare…

In “Queries of Unrest” written by Clint Smith, the author thoroughly conveys his message of darkness, death, fear, and power by his strong use of repetition, symbolism, and imagery. Throughout “Queries of Unrest”, Smith uses many literary terms like repetition to get his message of the poem out. For example, he uses “Maybe”, “darkness”, “scared”, and “cry for help” many times in his poem. When he uses these words and phrases he uses them to express doubt and fear about his life and what he’s…

Arabic food seems to be one of the dominant markers of Elmaz Abinader‘s identity during childhood as the theme of food is omnipresent in the first part of the story. The role of the Arabic food is a comforting one because the food makes Abinader forget the problems that her differences cause at school. "The smell was hypnotic and mitigated the melancholy I carried home with my lessons to do that night" (3). She tells that on Wednesday her mother cooks several delicious Arabic specialities such…

The Impossible Will Take a Little While is an exceptional piece on finding hope in difficult circumstances. While the main point is on political hope, that is not the only kind found throughout the book. Each part has stories filled with this central message while staying true to who the author is as an individual because each chapter has their motivation for desiring change. What causes these desires is different for each person, but these stories can be the key to generating change at a local…