Welcome Readers!
Our 2026 Online Reading Challenge is … KNOW YOUR HISTORY! Each month we will be reading about a different observance month and highlighting a main title about that month.
For April, we will be reading books that celebrate Arab American culture and heritage by reading books that feature Arabic culture and history. Our main title for April is Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:
As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the seventies to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation. Nahr’s subversive humor and moral ambiguity will resonate with fans of My Sister, The Serial Killer, and her dark, contemporary struggle places her as the perfect sister to Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties. – Washington Square Press
Looking for some other books that celebrate Arab American culture and heritage? Try any of the following.
- All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney
- But you don’t look Arab : and other tales of unbelonging by Hala Gorani.
- From Here: A Memoir by Luma Mufleh
- Hope is an arrow : the story of Lebanese American poet Kahlil Gibran by Cory McCarthy ; illustrated by Ekua Holmes.
- I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir by Malake Gharib
- Love is an ex-country : a memoir by Randa Jarrar.
- Man o’ War by Cory McCarthy
- They called me a lioness : a Palestinian girl’s fight for freedom by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri.
As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!