This review appeared in the Nov./Dec. 2004 issue of the AJL Newsletter:
Ellis, Deborah. Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children
Speak. Toronto: Groundwood/Douglas McIntyre,
2004. 144pp. $16.95. ISBN: 0-88899-608-X.
It must be acknowledged that no book about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going to satisfy everyone. The
issues are so fraught with hatred, resentment, prior assumptions, and
group loyalties that complete balance is probably impossible to
achieve. The Canadian author of this book brings to it assumptions
that will set off alarm bells. One is that the United Nations is an
honest broker. Another is that the West Bank is occupied. A third
is that refugee camps are an inevitable result of the conflict. But
how many children reading the book will have the knowledge to
challenge these assumptions or to know that they represent an
essentially pro-Palestinian argument?
The author traveled to Israel and interviewed Israeli
and Palestinian youth. We've seen books consisting of author
interviews before and usually the children's voices have been
manipulated to convey an anti-Israel bias. Here, this does not seem
to be the case. Fear, hatred, resentment, sadness, despair, and hope
are distributed among the children regardless of their
identity. Each child's comments are prefaced by a short introduction
by the author and usually a photo of the child. They live in the
midst of terrorism and war and what they have to say is, above all,
heartbreaking. What seems to set them apart is that the Israelis
believe that they themselves can help to create a better future
while, for the Palestinians, the present and the future look hopeless.
The potential audience for the book is rather large,
from about fifth grade through high school. Yes, it is flawed; even
the short bibliography includes several unacceptably biased titles,
including a viciously anti-Israel novel for teens by Christine Laird,
which is mistakenly called A Small Patch of Ground instead of by its
real title, A Little Piece of Ground. But it also gives a wrenching
sense of childhood during a terrorist war, expressed in what appear
to be genuine voices. It requires discussion after reading and would
be an especially apt choice for school libraries. Recommended with
reservations for Grades 5 to 12.
Linda R. Silver, Jewish Education Center, Cleveland, OH
Three Wishes has been available and in library collections for
well over a year. In my review, I tried to capture both its
strengths and its weaknesses. Few books, no matter what their
subject, are without some flaws. Not every book concerning the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is going to express only the Israeli
point of view. Nor should it. To be well informed and to be able to
make reasonable critical judgments, kids need to know more than one
side of an issue. Of course some of the Palestinian kids support
suicide bombings; to exclude or edit out all of those opinions is to
distort the issue and delude readers. The voices of the children
interviewed in the book express not facts but opinion and we know,
all too well, that in the opinion of many Palestinians, suicide
bombings are legitimate. Let's give the readers of this book some
credit for being able to separate the atrocious from the acceptable.
There is often a fine and fragile line between selecting books
about Israel and censoring those that depart from the Israeli
position or what we, as Jews, believe. Inaccuracies, bias, or skewed
interpretations are not acceptable to me as a reviewer but in the
case of subjective opinion, as expressed by the children interviewed
in Three Wishes, I would err on the side of inclusion, if that is the
alternative to censorship.
Linda Silver
Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author
and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
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