"Other Words for Home" depicts moments that refugees would understand. When Jude meets a girl from her school at the girl's parents' restaurant, she is presented with foods from home that remind her of "asroneyeh"-- afternoon snacks. TNL writer Kaycee Davis was inspired to make something similar. Photo courtesy of Kaycee Davis.
Warga, Jasmine., “Other Words for Home.” Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2019. 342 pages. 0062747800 $15.99 9780062747808
“Other Words for Home” is a 2020 Newbery Honor book written by Jasmine Warga. It presents the story of a girl named Jude who has no choice but to get out of Syria with her pregnant mother. Jude is a fictional character, but the civil war, which began in 2011, and the lives of the upended people it has displaced, are real.
Warga wrote in her author’s note that she started writing “Other Words for Home” in earnest as the war in Syria started getting publicity in 2016. “More of the world was aware of what was happening, yet the silence in response to the suffering of an entire population felt deafening. Why didn’t more people care? Why didn’t more people want to help?” wrote Warga.
Warga wrote that “Other Words for Home” is a way to help readers understand that they “don’t need to be afraid of these children who are fleeing from a war zone.”
In the story, Jude leaves her father – who stays behind with his shop – and her brother –who is involved with rebel forces. She also leaves her best friend and countless extended family members.
“Other Words for Home” is written in verse for a middle grade audience. As the descriptions go deeper into how politics influence social interactions, the reader can feel a net tightening on the family.
“Our town used to be
a place for people to laugh and enjoy
all the things that unite them like
family and sunshine and the sea and good food.
Not the things that divide them like opinions and political loyalties.”
Jude and her mother go to Clifton, a neighborhood in Cincinnati to live with her mother’s brother, Mazin, who grew up in Syria and has become an affluent, Americanized doctor, and his family. Jude learns that America is different from the movies she watched in Syria. Cousin Sarah takes time to warm up to Jude, but the two become friends eventually.
As Jude eases into her new American world, she faces discrimination from American strangers and from her own ethnic group on what she can and cannot do. With her mother, she navigates what it means to be a young Syrian woman while also exploring what it means to be a young American woman. She leaves her comfort zone and meets new friends, experiences a major rite of passage and chooses which traditions she wants to practice.
Food is used to show feelings and is crucial in transitions around the narrative of Jude, her mother and her uncle’s family.
There is a particularly emotional scene where Jude gets up the nerve to go exploring in her neighborhood and discovers “a Middle Eastern Restaurant, which back home would just be called simply a restaurant.” Past and present meet when Jude enters and is met with familiar Syrian objects and scents. Here, she sees someone from school – Layla, the only girl who covers her hair. Jude finds out that Layla’s parents own the restaurant. A friendship begins when her new friend brings out a tray filled with foods from Syria, and a metal tea pot that reminds her of how her aunt served asroneyeh – afternoon snacks.
A scarier, darker side appears when Jude – who is 12 years old – learns about Islamophobia in America. A bomb goes off in an American city, and girls like Jude who are visibly Muslim receive verbal abuse and blame from strangers.
Her mother’s pregnancy gives way to a growing baby whose development serves as a marker of time within the story. Time seems to fly, but references to her little sister’s age remind the reader that a lot is happening in a short time span.
The book uses Arabic terms and has a handy glossary in the back. It also uses translated Arabic terms and well-turned English phrases. Linguists will love this. Readers learn that habibti means sweetheart, nunu means baby and that skety means, ‘be quiet, don’t talk.
I liked “Other Words for Home” because of the character development displayed by the people in Jude’s immediate world. I appreciate the use of language because it feels graceful – I read books out loud to myself and this felt good to my body while doing so. The use of food to show interactions between characters was brilliant, and the situations that Jude ends up in are similar to what refugees go through every day.
“Other Words for Home” is written at a middle grade level, but it is for everyone. It tells readers what can be like to be a refugee as Jude maintains a balance between fitting in with her peers and keeping herself connected to her roots.
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