Collection: Shop Middle Eastern

Celebrate the end of Ramadan with this luminous Muslim family story about faith, history, and delicious foods.

On the night before Eid, it's finally time to make special sweet treats: Teita's famous ka'ak. Zain eagerly unpacks the ingredients from his grandmother's bulky suitcase: ghee from Khalo Karim, dates from Amo Girgis, and honey from Tant Tayseer--precious flavors all the way from Egypt. Together with Mama and Teita, Zain follows his family's recipe and brings to life Eid songs and prayers, pharaonic history, and the melodies and tastes of his Egyptian heritage.

This Muslim holiday story, featuring a delicious ka'ak recipe, is a satisfying addition to a joyful and expansive Eid.

A CCBC Children's Choice Best Book of the Year

It's alphabet rhyme time in this illustrated introduction to Arabic language and culture!

A perfect read-aloud bedtime book and the ideal accompaniment to guide emerging readers, My First Book of Arabic Words introduces children to the basic words and simple vocabulary of Arabic through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery. The ABCs of Arabic life are charmingly captured in Chaymaa Sobhy's illustrations, offering a contemporary lens on the great dynamism and diversity found in global Arab culture.

A charming character serves as your guide. Along the way, you get an A-to-Z introduction to her family, friends, and community, and follow her fun-filled adventures. Holidays and cultural traditions are woven into the narrative, offering a window into the world of an English-speaking child in the twenty-first century Arabic world:

E is for Eid al-Fitr.
We celebrate, we eat!
Gather round the table
can you find a seat?

A fun and informative foray into the Arabic language that combines Aya Khalil's lilting rhymes with Chaymaa Sobhy's vibrant illustrations.

Cut! Yasmin's class is putting on a play, and her job as director is turning out to be harder than she thought. The actors aren't happy, and Yasmin is quickly losing control. Then Yasmin realizes the director is in charge, so she directs some big changes to the save the play! Best-selling author Saadia Faruqi shares another delightful story featuring Yasmin and her multigenerational Pakistani American family.

Tracing the history of Palestine from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century, through the British Mandate, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the subsequent wars and conflicts which have dominated this troubled region, Ilan Pappe's widely acclaimed A History of Modern Palestine provides a balanced and forthright overview of Palestine's complex history. Placing at its centre the voices of the men, women, children, peasants, workers, town-dwellers, Jews and Arabs of Palestine, who lived through these times, this tells a story of co-existence and co-operation, as well as oppression, occupation, and exile, exposing patterns of continuity as well as points of fracture. Now in an updated third edition, Pappe draws links between contemporary events, from war in Lebanon, violence in the Gaza Strip and the Arab Spring, with the long history of Palestine, taking into account the success of Israel without neglecting the on-going catastrophe suffered by Palestinians, leaving hope for a better future for all who live in, or were expelled, from Palestine.

This new edition of an award-winning cookbook shares with readers the little-known but distinctive cuisine of the Gaza region of Palestine, presenting 130 recipes collected by the authors from Gaza. Cooks will find great, kitchen-tested recipes for spicy stews, piquant dips, fragrantly flavored fish dishes, and honey-drenched desserts. They will also be entranced by the hundreds of beautiful photos of Gazan cooks, farmers, and fresh-produce merchants at work, and by the numerous in-kitchen interviews in which these women and men tell the stories of their food, their heritage, and their families. Anthony Bourdain, Claudia Roden, and Yotam Ottolenghi are among the many culinary figures who have embraced The Gaza Kitchen. This third edition features tantalizing new stories and recipes, a fresh new design in a beautiful paperback volume, new photos, and an updated index.

Everyone seems to have an idea for the science fair except for Yasmin! After some failed experiments, Yasmin's snack break with Nani inspires an idea. Together they use kitchen science for sweet success!

Named one of NPR's Books We Love

In this riveting take on One Thousand and One Nights, Shaherazade, at the center of her own story, uses wit and political mastery to navigate opulent palaces brimming with treachery and the perils of the Third Crusade as her Persian homeland teeters on the brink of destruction.

In twelfth century, Persia, clever and dreamy Shaherazade stumbles on the Malik's beloved wife entwined with a lover in a sun-dappled courtyard. When Shaherazade recounts her first tale, the story of this infidelity, to the Malik, she sets the Seljuk Empire on fire.

Enraged at his wife's betrayal, the once-gentle Malik beheads her. But when that killing does not quench his anger, the Malik begins to marry and behead a new bride each night. Furious at the murders, his province seethes on rebellion's edge. To suppress her guilt, quell threats of a revolt, and perhaps marry the man she has loved since childhood, Shaherazade persuades her beloved father, the Malik's vizier, to offer her as the next wife. On their wedding night, Shaherazade begins a yarn, but as the sun ascends she cuts the story short, ensuring that she will live to tell another tale, a practice she repeats night after night.

But the Malik's rage runs too deep for Shaherazade to exorcise alone. And so she and her father persuade the Malik to leave Persia to join Saladin's fight against the Crusaders in Palestine. With plots spun against the Seljuks from all corners, Shaherazade must maneuver through intrigue in the age's greatest courts to safeguard her people. All the while, she must keep the Malik enticed with her otherworldly tales--because the slightest misstep could cost Shaherazade her head.

This suspenseful first-person retelling is vividly rendered through the voice of a fully imagined Shaherazade, a book lover whose late mother bestowed the gift of story that becomes her power. Created over fourteen years of writing and research, Jamila Ahmed's gorgeously written debut is a celebration of storytelling and a love letter to the medieval Islamic world that brings to life one of the most enduring and intriguing woman characters of all time.

The action-packed fifth installment in the infectiously sweet illustrated middle grade series starring a Muslim boy with a huge imagination.

Omar and his friends are blasting off on another adventure--this time at a rocket-building competition. All of his family's Science Sundays prepared Omar to lead his friends on their quest to build the best rocket in their school, sending them to the nationals. But when their rocket is sabotaged, Omar and his friends have to use their expertise in science and mysteries to find the culprit.

This fifth book in the charming, warmhearted, and hilarious series about a boy growing up in a close-knit Muslim family, packed with eye-popping artwork by Kyan Cheng, is explosively fun!

WINNER OF THE NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MEDAL FOR LITERATURE

A fierce and moving work and an unparalleled rendering of the human aspects of the Palestinian predicament.

Barred from his homeland after 1967's Six-Day War, the poet Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years in exile--shuttling among the world's cities, yet secure in none of them; separated from his family for years at a time; never certain whether he was a visitor, a refugee, a citizen, or a guest. As he returns home for the first time since the Israeli occupation, Barghouti crosses a wooden bridge over the Jordan River into Ramallah and is unable to recognize the city of his youth. Sifting through memories of the old Palestine as they come up against what he now encounters in this mere "idea of Palestine," he discovers what it means to be deprived not only of a homeland but of "the habitual place and status of a person." A tour de force of memory and reflection, lamentation and resilience, I Saw Ramallah is a deeply humane book, essential to any balanced understanding of today's Middle East.

From acclaimed author of The Third Daughter comes an epic historical novel of ingenuity and courage, of love and loss, spanning postwar France when Israeli agents roamed the countryside to rescue hidden Jewish orphans--to the 1969 daring escape of the Israeli boats of Cherbourg.

1942: As the Vichy government hunts for Jews across France, Claudette Pelletier, a young and talented seamstress and lover of romance novels, falls in love with a Jewish man who seeks shelter at the château where she works. Their whirlwind and desperate romance before he must flee leaves her pregnant and terrified.

When the Nazis invade the Free Zone shortly after the birth of her child, the disabled Claudette is forced to make a heartbreaking choice and escapes to Spain, leaving her baby in the care of his nursemaid. By the time Claudette is able to return years later, her son has disappeared. Unbeknown to his anguished mother, the boy has been rescued by a Youth Aliyah agent searching for Jewish orphans.

1968: When Israeli naval officer Daniel Yarden recruits Sharon Bloomenthal for a secret naval operation in Cherbourg, France, he can't imagine that he is the target of the agenda of the twenty-year-old grieving the recent loss of her fiancé in a drowned submarine. Sharon suspects that Danny's past in Youth Aliyah may reflect that of her mysterious late mother and she sets out to track her boss's extraordinary journey as an orphan in a quaint French village all the way to Israel.

As Danny focuses on the future of his people and on executing a daring, crucial operation under France's radar, he is unaware that the obsessed Sharon follows the breadcrumbs of clues across the country to find her answers. But she is wholly unprepared for the dilemma she must face upon solving the puzzle.

This inspirational picture book from the author of Dear Black Child encourages Muslim children to take joy and pride in their Islamic faith. Perfect for fans of In My Mosque and The Proudest Blue.

Dear Muslim Child, your story matters.

In this lyrical ode to Islam, Muslim children all over the world are encouraged to celebrate their faith and traditions.

Chosen by author Elizabeth Gilbert as one of her ten favorite books, Daniel Ladinsky's extraordinary renderings of 250 unforgettable lyrical poems by Hafiz, one of the greatest Sufi poets of all time

More than any other Persian poet--even Rumi--Hafiz expanded the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. Because his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, many have called Hafiz the "Invisible Tongue." Indeed, Daniel Ladinsky has said that his work with Hafiz is an attempt to do the impossible: to render Light into words--to make the Luminous Resonance of God tangible to our finite senses.

I am
a hole in a flute
that the Christ's breath moves
through--
listen to this
music!

With this stunning collection of Hafiz's most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in presenting the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and religious voices. Each line of The Gift imparts the wonderful qualities of this master Sufi poet and spiritual teacher: encouragement, an audacious love that touches lives, profound knowledge, generosity, and a sweet, playful genius unparalleled in world literature.

Yasmin is excited about her nature scout trip, but she is nervous about sleeping in a tent. To make matters worse, Yasmin's tent threatens to collapse! Can some quick thinking and creativity convince Yasmin that she can do anything, just like Baba told her? Best-selling author Saadia Faruqi shares another delightful story featuring Yasmin and her multigenerational Pakistani American family.

JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER - NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Beloved food writer and social media star Andy Baraghani helps you define and develop your personal cooking style--and become the cook you want to be--in more than 100 recipes.

"This book is full of things I want to make and cook."--Yotam Ottolenghi

ONE OF THE TEN BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: San Francisco Chronicle
ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Bon Appétit, Saveur, Salon, Epicurious

Andy Baraghani peeled hundreds of onions at Chez Panisse as a teenage intern, honed his perfectly balanced salad-making skills at Estela in New York, and developed recipes in the test kitchens of Saveur, Tasting Table, and Bon Appétit. It took him all those years to figure out the cook he wanted to be: a cook who is true to his Persian heritage, a fresh-vegetable lover, a citrus superfan, and an always-hungry world traveler. In The Cook You Want to Be, Baraghani shows home cooks on how to hone their own cooking styles by teaching the techniques and unexpected flavor combinations that maximize flavor in minimal time.

At Bon Appétit, Baraghani created a bevy of viral recipes--from Tahini Ranch to Fall-Apart Caramelized Cabbage--that became household staples. Here, he follows up with more umami-rich dishes, beautiful and restaurant-worthy meals (that take half the time), and well-known dishes recast in utterly delicious ways. Among his debut cookbook's 100 recipes, new surefire hits include Caramelized Sweet Potatoes with Browned Butter Harissa; Sticky, Spicy Basil Shrimp; and Tangy Pomegranate-Chicken. Cooks will find inspiration to riff on, quick meals for hurried weeknights, condiments galore, and memorable meals to impress dinner guests. In essays throughout the book, Baraghani shares convictions (why everyone must make his beloved Persian egg dish, kuku sabzi) and lessons to live by (the importance of salting fish before cooking it).

The Cook You Want to Be is a trove of go-to recipes and knowledge, stunning photographs, and delicious, simple home cooking for modern times.

Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, but until now there has not been a version that is a superlative literary text in its own right.

Acclaimed by critics and scholars, Stephen Mitchell's version allows us to enter an ancient masterpiece as if for the first time, to see how startlingly beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is.

A sensitive and heart warming story of how a little girl in Gaza finds strength and hope through her painting. Sitti's Bird is a unique children's picture book, written and illustrated by Palestinian artist, Malak Mattar, reflecting her experiences of childhood in Palestine.

Malak is a little girl who lives in Gaza with her parents. She goes to school, plays in the ocean, and visits Sitti's house on Fridays. One day while she is in school, bombings begin. She spends the next 50 days at home with her parents worrying and feeling scared, until one day she picks up her paintbrush ...

Sitti's Bird: A Gaza Story is a unique children's picture book, written and illustrated by Palestinian artist, Malak Mattar. Reflecting her experiences of childhood in occupied Palestine, Malak's story brings warmth and wonder to children as it tells of her rebirth as an artist during the 2014 airstrikes on Gaza. It is the story of a young girl whose love for her family and discovery of art help her channel her fears and overcome traumas that few of us can imagine--traumas shared by countless children in Gaza and around the world.