A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child’s Search for Home

K-Gr 3–A gentle soundtrack enhances Ramahi’s empathic narration of Odeh’s hauntingly spectacular debut, embodying a Palestinian American girl who won’t be erased. Grounding sounds of school, garden, and family add aural substance, deliberately contradicting a teacher’s declaration, “I think there’s no such place,” when young Falasteen can’t find Palestine on the classroom map during a family origins activity. At home, her grandpa draws Falasteen a map for a “teacher [who] needs teaching”; grandma gifts Falasteen the iron key to the house she was forced to flee decades prior. Her mother assures, “Palestine lives in you and me.” Odeh’s illuminating author’s note, not included in audio, reveals the story’s provenance—her mother’s family’s tragic 1967 escape from Israeli tanks.