Set in the Middle East in 1988, eleven-year-old Malaak's story centers around the disappearance of her father, who left to find work in Gaza City a month ago, and has not returned home. As Malaak closes down, turning inward with her worry and grief, her brother Hamid finds comfort in action, and joins the Islamic Jihad against the wishes of his mother and sisters. Meanwhile, although the family attempts to maintain some level of normality in their daily lives, they are under constant strain. Soldiers patrol the neighborhood, schools are closed, curfews imposed, and children throwing stones may provoke gunfire in retaliation. Malaak's story contains no easy answers, but offers compassionate insight into individual lives impacted hugely and constantly by the conflict that surrounds them. (Ages 10-14)

In Gaza City, 1988, a sensitive, observant girl finds her voice - and the strength to move beyond the violence that surrounds her.

I am Malaak Abed Atieh, and this bird is Abdo. . . . I live in Abdo’s eyes. . . . I fly high, high above Gaza City. . . . Nothing stops me - not the concrete and razor wire, not the guns, not the soldiers. I stare at them with my hard black Abdo eyes, and they do not shoot me. I am hidden.

It has been a month since eleven-year-old Malaak’s beloved father left Gaza City to look for work in Israel, only to disappear. Every day she climbs up to the roof and waits for him, imagining that she can fly to the prison cell where she is sure he waits. She speaks little to anyone, referring to commune with the loyal little bird she has tamed. Malaak’s brother, Hamid, has his own way of coping. The volatile twelve-year-old feels only anger, stoked by militant extremists who preach violence as the only way to change their fate. Malaak’s mother and sister beg the boy to stay away from harm, but now Malaak lives in fear: is she destined to lose her only brother as well?