Tasting the Sky

For our Lit Circles project, I am in the group reading the book Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat. So far, I have enjoyed the book and found many things interesting in it. So far, I do not believe we have learned the name of the main character, the narrator. She is a young girl, who in the section of reading we completed, only gets up to age six. She has two older brothers, Basel and Mohammed. She has a baby sister named Maha. She is extremely close with her family; she only feels safe when she is with them, and this only grows stronger as the story goes on. In the beginning, her father is very paranoid that war will break out. She describes her father having nightmares and kicking and flailing his limbs in the middle of the night. Her mother would have to sleep on the edge of the bed, and she would bring water to him in the middle of the night to comfort him. Soon enough, war does breakout with Israel. Her and her family flee and hide away from their home. Their mother is even shot at by a plane from above, when she tries to run back into her house to retrieve more things. Luckily, she is not hit. In trying to get to Jordan to find refuge, her family along with others stop another family driving a water tanker in the middle of the road. The two families become very close. The moms and children stay together at a refugee camp, while the fathers have to find elsewhere. The war only lasts sixdays, and the families still stay together for a little bit while figuring out if they can go back to Ramallah. They finally return to their home in Ramallah, but it is not the same. They find many gunshot holes in their home, and Israeli troops train extremely close to their house. This drives the mom mad. She is always anxious and sad. She insists she takes the kids to an orphanage where she can stay with them. They have to say that their father has died. Things are rough at the orphanage, and the narrator’s two brothers are sent to another orphanage for getting in a fight. Their father returns after a while and persuade their mom to give them another chance at their home. Overall, I have found reading the experience of a child so immersed into a life of war to be very interesting. It is extremely sad. No one should have to experience such turmoil at such an early age. I am excited to get more into Tasting the Sky.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Six-Day-War