Nye is a prominent poet for adults, as well as a highly regarded anthologist for teenagers. Her newest volume contains 57 of her own poems written about the Middle East and about being an Arab American, collected here with young readers in mind. Most are very short. All involve impassioned images: people, aromas, happenings. In the title poem Nye writes, "For years the Arab poets used 'gazelle' / to signify grace / but when faced with a meadow of leaping gazelle / there were no words . . . What else had we seen in our lives? / Nothing better . . . 'Don't bother to go there,' said a man at our hotel. 'It's too far.' / . . . There is no gazelle in today's headline . . . " Her poem dated September 11, 2001, ends, "Peace is rough." Nye knows this, and yet she doesn't give up. Neither will her young readers, because her belief in all people shines through in her exquisite poetry. (Age 12 and older)

EM"Tell me how to live so many lives at once ..."/em

Fowzi, who beats everyone at dominoes; Ibtisam, who wanted to be a doctor; Abu Mahmoud, who knows every eggplant and peach in his West Bank garden; mysterious Uncle Mohammed, who moved to the mountain; a girl in a red sweater dangling a book bag; children in velvet dresses who haunt the candy bowl at the party; Baba Kamalyari, age 71; Mr. Dajani and his swans; Sitti Khadra, who never lost her peace inside.

EMMaybe they have something to tell us./em

Naomi Shihab Nye has been writing about being Arab-American, about Jerusalem, about the West Bank, about family all her life. These new and collected poems of the Middle East -- sixty in all -- appear together here for the first time.