The Book of Trees

October 15, 2010
A 17-year-old has a shallow religious epiphany followed by an equally shallow retreat from religion and political awakening. In the old days, Mia repeatedly assures us, she only wanted "to get high, make music and have sex." Now she's studying at a Jerusalem yeshiva; hoping for a spiritual reawakening, Mia has blindly decided she'll find it in Orthodox Judaism. Unfortunately, she connects neither with her classmates nor their religious or political beliefs. The more she learns about the ugly creation of Israel's national myth of a previously empty land being made green, the more barren she finds Orthodox Judaism. Her political self-education gets tangled up with her conviction that she is "sick of wearing ugly clothes," her disinterest in yeshiva studies and her lust for Andrew, the sexy guitar bum she meets in the streets of Jerusalem. The issues are vitally important, but the heroine's facile acceptance of a hot boy's pacifism is hardly convincing, the straw-man yeshiva students diminish the painful political realities and Mia just isn't likable enough to carry the tale. (Fiction. 12-13)

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May 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Tired of her life of clubbing and singing in a band, Mia Quinn turns to Judaism to find direction and earns a scholarship to a girls' seminary in Jerusalem. But when she doesn't fit in and is uninspired by her classes, she begins to explore the city, struggling to make sense of the intense political situation. She befriends Andrew, an American street performer, and he soon becomes her confidant and romantic interest. After reading a book about the displacement of Arabs from Israel in 1948 and witnessing a bus bombing, Mia leaves the seminary, becomes sexually involved with Andrew, and joins the cause to rebuild Palestinian homes. While it is understandable that an inquisitive teenager would refuse to accept everything that she is taught, and Mia's decision to leave the school (and the confines of Orthodox Judaism) is inevitable, it doesn't make sense that she would so readily accept everything she reads in one small paperback and believe everything that she hears from Andrew's friends. Mia comments: "I wanted to untangle who was right or wrong, but I didn't have the whole story." Unfortunately, with no positive adults (or even better-informed young adults) to help her sort through her complicated questions, Lieberman fails to provide readers with even a small part of the whole story. The lack of historical background information, balance, and perspective makes it difficult to recommend this book. Sarah Glidden's How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less (Vertigo, 2010) and Marc Aronson's Unsettled: The Problem of Loving Israel (S & S, 2008) do a much better job of providing a context for exploring the complicated, highly charged issues surrounding the Israeli-Arab conflict.-Rachel Kamin, North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, IL

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2010
Grades 9-12 Growing up in Toronto, Mia learned some Jewish traditions from her secular single mom, but in high school, she grows increasingly interested in religious life, and after graduation, she accompanies an Orthodox friend to Jerusalem, where the girls will spend the summer studying at a yeshiva, or seminary. Once in Israel, though, Mia doesnt find the sense of homecoming shed hoped for. Instead, she feels increasingly alienated from her religious classmates and troubled by her growing understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then she falls for Andrew, a non-Jewish, American busker, with whom she has tender, meaningful sex. As Mia, a talented musician herself, meets Andrews friends who volunteer in Arab villages, her questions about statehood, human rights, and her own faith intensify. Lieberman acknowledges the novels roots in her own young adult experiences, and although the narrative sometimes takes on a purposeful tone, she grounds the wrenching issues in the realistic, sensitively drawn story of one teens tumultuous, coming-of-age search for faith, cultural identity, and grown-up love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)