Organizers cited the Israel-Hamas war as the reason for stepping back from honoring a novel about the 1949 murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers.
His books, laced with humor and often banned in his country, chronicle centuries of strife in the Middle East, earning critical praise and an international readership.
Sarah Ogilvie’s sprightly “The Dictionary People” pays tribute to the explorers, suffragists, murderers and ordinary citizens who helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.
“Temple Folk,” Aaliyah Bilal’s collection of stories featuring Black American Muslims, was inspired by her family’s experiences with the Nation of Islam.
“My favorite author was Madeleine L’Engle,” says the National Book Award-winning historian, whose new book is “Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation.” “In middle school I would ride the city bus to the public library and check out L’Engle’s novels for teens.”