Hilwa's Gifts

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A heartwarming picture-book debut brings a tradition many thousands of years oldharvesting and pressing olives into oilvividly to life, showing how customs unite us across time and space.

Ali has arrived in Palestine for a visit just in time for the olive harvest. His grandfather, Seedo, and Hilwahis favorite treegreet him in the grove, where Seedo explains that Hilwa has many gifts to share. Other family members whack the trees branches with sticks, singing Zaytoon, ya zaytoon while cousins clap and dance and happily pick up fallen olives. (Luckily, a gentle whack is all it takes for Hilwas fruits to rain down!) The next day, at the olive press, Ali watches the drip of gold liquid into a can, another of Hilwas gifts. Later, they picnic under the trees branches with hot mint tea, pita, and delicious olive oil swirled on hummus. Tradition is the greatest gift of all: the family gatheringgeneration after generationto celebrate a bountiful harvest. Dynamic illustrations and a graceful text peppered with Arabic words, plus a glossary and authors note, make for an intimate picture-book debut about a child discovering his heritage.

Author Bio

Safa Suleiman is a Palestinian American educator with more than twenty years of experience in undergraduate and elementary school pedagogy. She now focuses on writing and teaching through storytelling centering the Palestinian and the American Muslim communities. Hilwas Gifts is her first book. She lives with her family in Colorado on the homeland of the Ute Nation.

Anait Semirdzhyan is the illustrator of Just Us by Molly Beth Griffin, Bbo: A Tale of Armenian Rug-Washing Day by Astrid Kamalyan, The Great Banned-Books Bake Sale by Aya Khalil, and many other acclaimed books for children. Born in Kazakhstan and raised in Armenia, she now lives in the Seattle area with her husband and twin daughters.