About Ibtisam Barakat

Ibtisam Barakat is a bilingual speaker of Arabic and English, who grew up in Ramallah, West Bank, and now lives in Columbia, MO.  Her work focuses on healing social injustices and the hurts of wars, especially those involving young people.  Ibtisam emphasizes that conflicts are more likely to be resolved with creativity, kindness, and inclusion rather than with force, violence, and exclusion.  Her educational programs include Growing Up Palestinian; Healing the Hurts of War; The ABCs of Understanding Islam; Arab Culture, The Mideast Conflict; and Building Peace.  The ABCs was selected by the Missouri Humanities Council as one of its Speaker Bureau programs in 2003 and 2004.

Ibtisam has taught language ethics courses—Language Uses and Abuses—at Stephens College (2002).  She is also the founder of Write Your Life (WYL) seminars and has led WYL seminars in places including Morocco, Washington, D.C., Missouri, and Ramallah. In 2001, Ibtisam was a delegate to the third United Nations conference on the elimination of racism, which was held in Durban, South Africa.  In 2004, she was a visiting writer at the Creativity for Peace camp, which brought Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls to Santa Fe to provide an opportunity for them to live together in cooperation and peace.  In January 2005, she was a moderator at the fourth international Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace conference in Jerusalem, where Israeli, Palestinian, and international faculty members and students work toward finding creative ways to bring about peace for Israel and Palestine. As an educator, poet, and peace activist, Ibtisam has spoken at the Center for Southern Literature / Margaret Mitchell House and Museum; William Woods College; Missouri Historic Theater; Dartmouth College; Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago; PEN New England; National Writers Union / New Jersey chapter; the International Children’s Literature Day / University of Wisconsin; Children’s Literature New England / Williams College; North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching; Reading the World / University of San Francisco; and various high schools, including the school district of Anchorage, Alaska.

TASTING THE SKY is her first book. Copies may be ordered in advance of Words & Music by calling Faulkner House Books, (504) 586-1609 or e-mailing your order to jsealy@faulknerhousebooks.net.  

A portion of the proceeds from conference related books purchased through Faulkner House Books are donated to the Faulkner Society for its ongoing projects.

A portion of the proceeds from books sold during the conference by Barnes & Noble also benefit
The Faulkner Society.

Reviews of Tasting the Sky
School Library Journal
Starred Review. Grade 7 Up–This moving memoir of a Palestinian woman's childhood experiences during the Six-Day War and its aftermath is presented in beautifully crafted vignettes. Barakat, now living and working in the United States, frames the story of her life between 1967 and 1970 with a pair of letters from herself as a high school student in 1981. Detained by soldiers during an ordinary bus trip, she was prompted to try to recall her shattered childhood and share her experiences with others around the world. She begins with a description of her three-year-old self, temporarily separated from her family in their first frantic flight from their Ramallah home as the war began. The author's love for the countryside and her culture shines through her bittersweet recollections. Careful choice of episodes and details brings to life a Palestinian world that may be unfamiliar to American readers, but which they will come to know and appreciate. Readers will be charmed by the writer-to-be as she falls in love with chalk, the Arabic alphabet, and the first-grade teacher who recognizes her abilities.–Kathleen Isaacs, Towson University, MD. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Booklist
*Starred Review* In a spare, eloquent memoir, Barakat recalls life under military occupation. In 1981 the author, then in high school, boarded a bus bound for Ramallah. The bus was detained by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint on the West Bank, and she was taken to a detention center before being released. The episode triggers sometimes heart-wrenching memories of herself as a young child, at the start of the 1967 Six Days' War, as Israeli soldiers conducted raids, their planes bombed her home, and she fled with her family across the border to Jordan. She also recalls living under occupation and the thrill of being able to attend the United Nations school for refugees. The political upheaval is always in the background, but for young Barakat, much of the drama was in incidents that took place in everyday life.^B What makes the memoir so compelling is the immediacy of the child's viewpoint, which depicts both conflict and daily life without exploitation or sentimentality. An annotated bibliography will help readers fill in the facts. Hazel Rochman. Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

Other Reviews

"A compassionate, insightful family and cultural portrait." --Starred, Kirkus Reviews

“Brims with tension and emotion.” --Publishers Weekly

Books purchased online do not benefit the Society. However, Ms. Barakat's books may be ordered on-line at these links.

http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780374357337

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ean=9780374357337