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    A Little Piece of Ground
    A Little Piece of Ground
    A Little Piece of Ground
    Ebook244 pages4 hours

    A Little Piece of Ground

    By Elizabeth Laird and Sonia Nimr

    4/5

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    About this ebook


    A Little Piece Of Ground will help young readers understand more about one of the worst conflicts afflicting our world today.


    Written by Elizabeth Laird, one of Great Britain’s best-known young adult authors, A Little Piece Of Ground explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy.

    Twelve-year-old Karim Aboudi and his family are trapped in their Ramallah home by a strict curfew. In response to a Palestinian suicide bombing, the Israeli military subjects the West Bank town to a virtual siege. Meanwhile, Karim, trapped at home with his teenage brother and fearful parents, longs to play football with his friends. When the curfew ends, he and his friend discover an unused patch of ground that’s the perfect site for a football pitch. Nearby, an old car hidden intact under bulldozed building makes a brilliant den. But in this city there’s constant danger, even for schoolboys. And when Israeli soldiers find Karim outside during the next curfew, it seems impossible that he will survive.


    This powerful book fills a substantial gap in existing young adult literature on the Middle East. With 23,000 copies already sold in the United Kingdom and Canada, this book is sure to find a wide audience among young adult readers in the United States.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHaymarket Books
    Release dateFeb 1, 2016
    ISBN9781608465835
    A Little Piece of Ground
    Author

    Elizabeth Laird

    Elizabeth Laird is the multi-award-winning author of several much-loved children's books including The Garbage King, The Fastest Boy in the World and Dindy and the Elephant. She has been shortlisted for the prestigious Carnegie Medal six times. She lives in Britain now, but still likes to travel as much as she can.

    Read more from Elizabeth Laird

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    Reviews for A Little Piece of Ground

    4/5

    24 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      It is refreshing to read a children's novel that so honestly examines conflict. OK, so it is written within the conventions of children's fiction, so the three main protagonists are unrealistically optimistic and resilient in the face of the hardships they suffer, but it still gets across some truths to which children in the UK will rarely be exposed without sacrificing a strong sense of narrative.Set in Ramallah, the story focuses on Karim, Joni and Hopper as they live under the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The three boys are drawn from across social and religious boundaries to emphasise the generic conventions of searching for social harmony and oneness, but still the novel manages to stress the historical circumstances of Israeli occupation, openly referring to torture within prisons, the shooting of innocents and the forcible taking of land.I know it is not genuinely realistic but what a great starting point for young readers. It also made me re-evaluate my reading of John Boyne's 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', which I found enjoyable but unsettling on some unknown level. I now think I can articulate where that came from. 'Pyjamas' decontextualises events. The historical forces that led to the Nazi persecution of the Jews are brushed aside by the naivety of nine-year-old Bruno's narration. As such readers are presented with an overly simplified view of human nature: there are good people and bad people and you better watch out because those bad people may get you whatever side of the line you exist upon. 'A Little Piece of Ground', on the other hand, while alluding to the possibility of wrong-doing from all sides of a conflict, is very clear that people act in certain ways under certain circumstances. Only when young people begin to understand this can they begin to fully understand one another. Excellent stuff. Made me want to read more by Laird.
    • 3/5
      Book Review:A little piece of ground by Elizabeth LairdThis book takes place in Palestineand tells the stroy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from a Palestinian point of view, an eleven year-old boy called Karim.Karim Aboudi has been stuck insidean apartment block for weeks in Ramallah because of a curfew set by the Israelis with his Mum (Lamia), Dad (Hassan), older brother (Jamal) and two younger sisters(Farah and Sireen). He longs to go play soccer outside with his friends and when they find the perfect soccer pitch the boys decide to clear it when they are caught by Israeli soldiers during a curfew and their lives are in danger.What I think of it: I thought that the book wasn't extremely interesting untill over half way throught the book. The author did well to decribe the characters and the scenes but could have worked on making it more interstenting for my age group (13-14yrs). This is not my favourite genre and I think I will enjoy fantisy (the next genre we are reading).In my opinion the age group in 15 and older as people younger than this will get bored very easily with this book as it isn't very captivating as I mentioned before.
    • 5/5
      Every child should read this. very suitable for adults too.
      The language, the plot, the characters...this book deals with a complex issue with such mastery that you feel the pain never to a point where you want ot quit reading. With glimpses of daily life, some humor, thrill, the atrocities of the occupant's army and the bits of human side of them, all weaved so well together. The author managed to keep the pain threshhold to her audience's endurance level.
    • 4/5
      The book tells the story of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the Palestinian point of view, or more accurately from the point of view of an eleven-year-old boy, Karim, from a middle class family in Ramala.A good attempt to have the other side of the story heard.(Written with Sonia Nimr, a lecturer at Bir Zeit University in Palestine and a translator of children’s books.)

    Book preview

    A Little Piece of Ground - Elizabeth Laird

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