Understanding the Holy Land (SE)

Complete with maps and photographs, a guide provides a comprehensive review of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a review of the area's history, its people, significant past and present events, and definitions of commonly used terms.

*Starred Review* Gr. 6-9. There's nothing flashy in this book. No dramatic design work; the photographs are interesting but basic. The strength is simply in organization and in the language. Frank, the author of Understanding September 11 (2002), tackles the complex subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making it comprehensible, if not any less horrific; in some ways, the plain recitations of the facts make the hatred, death, and destruction even more shocking. He uses a simple yet wonderfully effective technique to present the information: questions and answers. Each chapter has a theme question (for example, "What Is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?"), and within each chapter this subject is further broken down. For instance, the first chapter evokes several more targeted questions--Why is there a conflict? and Why is the rest of the world involved? In this fashion, Frank delves deeply into the conflict--its history, underlying reasons, the help (or lack thereof) given by other countries. Although the penultimate question, Is peace possible? is not answered in a particularly hopeful way, the last question, What can you do? offers some ideas, if not for solutions, for ways readers can bring information and peace into their own lives. Evenhanded and honest. Ilene Cooper
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