“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.“
Ann Frank
A Book Review/Literacy Activity Guide by Dr. Rose Reissman
A new print book by an eight year old Syrian girl and
her mother who escaped Aleppo in 2016 is available from Simon and Schuster. This 2017 work’s title is Dear World- A
Syrian Girl’s Story of War and Plea for peace.
Although marketed as an adult book, this work is suitable for
grades 4 -12. It was coauthored by then 8 year old Bana (it features a number
of the actual pages she wrote by hand) and her mother, teacher Fatemah Alabed.
This is a deeply moving and emotionally evocative memoir. Still, it is remarkable that Bana and her mother managed to draw the interest of a major publisher. How did this happen? The book is the result of Bana’s having grabbed the attention Twitter users worldwide when, during the siege of Aleppo in 2016, she tweeted her direct experiences of it to a massive audience.
This is a deeply moving and emotionally evocative memoir. Still, it is remarkable that Bana and her mother managed to draw the interest of a major publisher. How did this happen? The book is the result of Bana’s having grabbed the attention Twitter users worldwide when, during the siege of Aleppo in 2016, she tweeted her direct experiences of it to a massive audience.
Between the
poignant book cover of a child in pink sweat pants standing in front of the
ruins of bombed Aleppo and the back cover on which her younger siblings hold up
“Stand with Aleppo” posters, what caring global citizen and literacy teacher
could resist selecting this work? The
title “Dear World”, a child’s pleading for peace embodies the emotional power of literacy.
As falling bombs destroyed her home and killed her
best friend, Bana got her message out to the world. To Accomplish this she used digital
media that is now commonly available to kids everywhere, making her story an
inspiration and call to action for her entire generation.
Before even opening the book, I made a connection
between Bana, Anne Frank, Zlata
Filipović,
and Malala Yousafzai. As I opened the first few pages, I was strongly mindful of an Anne Frank quote that underscores
the optimism shared by these young advocates for peace and
global understanding “Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us
strong again.“ 21st century Bana, at 8 years of age, carried
forward the mission of 20th century diarist Anne Frank as did Zlata from
Sarajevo when she wrote the diary that would become the popular Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo.
Bana Alabed tool the phenomenon of a young writer’s advocacy for peace to a new level using a new and powerful medium, the 140 character Twitter message. Tweets, from @AlabedBana, like “We are not armed, why do you kill us?” grabbed the attention of caring people around the world.
In this book, Bana explains how, using the Twitter account her mother created for her, she could “talk to people all over the world. . . "I thought maybe they could help us. 'She becomes heartened and excited when she became aware that she had an audience, one that responded to her sending ‘messages right away from grownups and kids all over the world. . . . people were listening.”
Hiding in a basement with her family as the bombs drop, 21st century Bana has an advantage over her 20th century inspiration Anne Frank. Thanks to Twitter, her voice is heard immediately, and she quickly receives the feedback that Anne Frank never lived to receive.
Bana Alabed tool the phenomenon of a young writer’s advocacy for peace to a new level using a new and powerful medium, the 140 character Twitter message. Tweets, from @AlabedBana, like “We are not armed, why do you kill us?” grabbed the attention of caring people around the world.
In this book, Bana explains how, using the Twitter account her mother created for her, she could “talk to people all over the world. . . "I thought maybe they could help us. 'She becomes heartened and excited when she became aware that she had an audience, one that responded to her sending ‘messages right away from grownups and kids all over the world. . . . people were listening.”
Hiding in a basement with her family as the bombs drop, 21st century Bana has an advantage over her 20th century inspiration Anne Frank. Thanks to Twitter, her voice is heard immediately, and she quickly receives the feedback that Anne Frank never lived to receive.
In war-torn Aleppo, Bana reads the messages and
watches her Twitter followers grow. She sees #StandwithAleppo, which she placed
in a post in 2016, used more than one
million times. Supervised by her mother, 7 year old Bana’s Twitter account
feeds hope and optimism to a world anxious to hear from her.
This work was wisely edited to expand its reader
reach from child to adult by alternating the authentic writing of very young, elementary age Bana with the
emotional responses of her mother. Her mother, a trained teacher, reflects on the anguish of a woman who refuses to leave the homeland
she loves, but yet, as a mother, fears each day for the physical safety of her
three young children. She offers
counterpoint to the fears of Bana, using dolls, games, and even the shield of
her own body to make her children feel safe in an unsafe world.
Her words as a wise adult who stubbornly does not
want to flee and become a refugee, offer needed political context to the Syrian
war and explain why so many families, as did that of Anne Frank in 1940s Germany and that of
Zlata in 1990s Sarajevo, refused to leave their homelands in the face of
potential death. More importantly, as a 21st century global citizen,
she wisely helps her daughter and herself tap the power of Twitter, video, and
photography to alert the world to what is happening in Aleppo.
How
teachers can use this work: On the
elementary level, children can read the picture book - Malala’s
Magic Pencil (2017) and check out, online, the images and words of Malala,
which can be compared with Bana’s online book trailer and her interviews. The students can generate a Venn Diagram, or
if on upper elementary school level, write a compare and contrast study of the
ways in which these two young writers from different countries (Pakistan, and
Syria) share many of the same values and methods for advocacy and how they
contrast.
If this work is shared in middle school, students can read Malalas’s initial
book, I am Malala (2012) or read Zlata's
Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo by Zlata Filipović, and The Diary
of a Young Girl (The Diary of Anne Frank) for a
shared study of the ways in which young persons used their communication
abilities and writing talents to share their experiences of the world with
unseen diverse audiences.
Students in secondary school can create a blog or Power Point (slide
presentation) further detailing athe ongoing Syrian refugee crisis and the
continual loss of life in that war. At
any age, readers can react to Alabed’s Twitter messages (caution, some of her tweets contain strong material that teachers should inspect for appropriateness before sharing with students!) and might also want to post to
Malala’s blog and check up on, now adult, Zlata and how she maintains her
activism for peace worldwide. All
readers, with the support of facilitating adults, can create posters, tweets,
diaries, letters to the editor, blogs, illustrations or videos, which represent
their own “dear world” messages.
Fatemah Alabed echoes Anne Frank’s quote about hope- stating:”The human impulse for optimism is our greatest strength.” As the words of Bana “twitter” through to readers and this work, told by a child and her mother as a memoir, touches hearts and minds, it testifies to how the power of literacy, through both digital and print, can affect the world for the good.
LINKS
Aleppo Girl Shares Her Story
Simon & Schuster Books
When seven-year-old Bana Alabed took to Twitter to describe
the horrors she and her family were experiencing in war-torn Syria, her
heartrending messages touched the world and gave a voice to millions of
innocent children. She now shares her story in DEAR WORLD.
Also…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/13/bana-al-abed-seven-year-old-syrian-peace-campaigner-to-publish-memoir
(why she used twitter as well)
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute,
now replicated in 200 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in
Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators
Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies
developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute,
now replicated in 200 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in
Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators
Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies
developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
