Hilwa’s Gifts
by Safa Suleiman; illus. by Anait Semirdzhyan
Primary    Candlewick    40 pp.
4/25    9781536229424    $18.99

Ali visits his grandparents in Palestine, where they grow olive trees on their land. Ali and his seedo (grandfather) have a close bond; Seedo twirls Ali in the air and gives piggyback rides. It’s olive harvesting season, and they visit one particular tree named Hilwa (“sweet one”) that Seedo planted with his grandfather. Ali’s sitty (grandmother) whacks the branches of trees with a stick to harvest the olives, a method that has been passed down through generations. Olive-gathering is a festive affair: Ali’s cousins collect them in baskets while singing “zaytoon, ya zaytoon” (“olives, oh olives”) and dancing. When Ali and Seedo go to the olive press, Seedo explains that olives are one of Hilwa’s many gifts. Hilwa’s last gift is a cutting that Ali plants upon returning home, while Seedo and Sitty watch via video call. Digitally rendered illustrations authentically represent an idyllic Palestinian home and landscape, but the trees and loving extended family remain the focal points. A gentle story about intergenerational bonds and the significance of olive trees to Palestinians as both sustenance and a metaphor representing closeness to the land. An author’s note explains the basis for the story in a childhood memory; a glossary of Arabic words is also appended.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.