Breakfast in Palestine-- by Dixiane Hallaj

 Nonfiction / Memoir

202 pages/

5 Stars

 

I love a good memoir, I love history, and I love good food and recipes, and this delightful book gives me all. 

 

Ms. Hallaj lived with her husband and (at the time) two children in Palestine. This book gives us a beautiful look into her sudden extended family from a vastly different culture. She was welcomed with open arms, and accepted into the family, where she learned a new language, a new culture, and a vastly different kitchen.

 

Neon pink pickled turnips for breakfast? But of course! Hummus? Naturally, this is the Middle East, after all. Not only does Ms. Hallaj give us stories about the foods, and recipes adapted to American kitchens, she gives us history with flavor.

 

She also provides links at the end of each chapter for more information on the recipes and histories. 

 

If you are an armchair traveler pining for a place and time to visit, if you are a moderately adventurous cook, if you just want to feel good about your fellow human beings, read this book. Totally delightful

Born A Refugee --by Dixiane Hallaj

Fiction / Historical (modern)  

314 pages / 3961 KB

2013

5 Stars

"Born A Refugee" sat in my kindle for several months before I decided to read it. I had started it, when first purchased, and for some reason didn't get very far. I feared, I think, it would be a downer, and I just didn't want to read a downer. Was I ever wrong!

I needed a good book to read the other day, and opened this one. I finished it the next day. It was a 2-sit read. Had I not fallen asleep, it would have been a 1-sit read.

I know very little about modern Palestine and or Israel, and found this book to be very enlightening. Now, I know a little about Palestine and life in one of the refugee camps.

Mama, a widow, and her three youngest sons live in Kalandia Refugee camp. Her oldest boy is a businessman and lives in town, and her daughter is married and lives on the other side of the camp. The younger boys were born in the camp, and know no other life. The older children were very young when they were dispossessed and moved to the camp. The book easily could have become a lament, but it didn't. The boys are very believable boys.

There is sadness in the middle of the book, but it works. So did my eyes, and I recommend a hankie at the ready. By the end of the book, happiness once again prevails. There are a couple of loose ends I hoped were answered, but they weren't, but overall, I would give this book a 97 out of 100 possible points.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story, and would like to read a non-text book, yet educational and informative, story about the Palestinian people and their lives under the thumb of the Israelis. I found the story engaging, the people believable, I learned some about the culture and beliefs, and look forward to reading Book 2 and Book 3.

Love and Best Friends Forever

Aunt Nellie B –by Dixiane Hallaj

Fiction

221 Pages / 2758 KB

Footnotes/Endnotes: No

Illustrations: No

Suitable for eReaders: Yes

5 Stars

If I didn't know better, I'd swear Ms. Hallaj has known me all my life, and had access to many of my early memories – and late ones, too.

The narrator of the story, Charli (short for Charlotte Ann) is a precocious child who keeps journals. She knows there seems to be a curse on her family, that all the women have several husbands – either through divorce or death and remarriage. She is not privy to the conversations when her mother and aunts get together for coffee and gossip, so develops a strategy to make herself "invisible" so she can listen in. She hears a great deal of adult conversation that she really doesn't understand, and of course, can ask no one about.

I love the voice of Charli, especially as the child. She reminds me of my BFF, Leslie, and me when we were that age. Especially the scene where Charli and her cousin, close to the same age, are together at the table and play 'twins' by picking up their food at the same time, chewing at the same time, swallowing the same time. Leslie and I were known to do that, too ;-) Synchronized eating?

Leslie and I grew apart, and marriages stepped in, with the name changes, etc., and we only recently found each other again. And the 'twinness' is still there. There were absences in Aunt Nellie B, too, but never loss of love.

The story takes place over a span of several years, so it is necessary to pay attention to the dates Ms. Hallaj uses at the beginning of chapters and sections, though it's not nearly as difficult to follow as some other books that do the same thing.

Charli makes some bad choices in her life, as do the other women of her family, but they are always there for each other, giving their love and support through, as the cliché says, thick and thin.

This is by no means a romance, but it certainly is, in the best of all possible ways, a story of Love triumphing over all. In fact, when I finished reading it, I called Leslie, and told her about it, so she, too, will get a copy to read and enjoy it as much as I have.

A marvelous read, great for bedtime, or a one-sit read like I did.