Kareem Between

Overview

Middle school is hard enough, but things are extra difficult for Kareem right now. A coming-of-age tale about growing up with one foot in two cultures and countries, Shifa Saltagi Safadi balances a young boy’s anxieties over school with real-world issues. This is a poetic story of family and finding home.

**WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for Young People's Literature**

This heartfelt coming-of-age novel in verse tells the powerful story of a seventh-grade Syrian American boy and his struggles, big and small, as he navigates middle school, now in paperback!

"The exact type of book I would've loved, and needed, as a kid." — Jasmine Warga, New York Times bestselling author of and Newbery Honor recipient for Other Words for Home

Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it.

His best friend moved away, he messed up his tryout for the football team, and because of his heritage, he was voluntold to show the new kid—a Syrian refugee with a thick and embarrassing accent—around school. Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, the hotshot QB promises to get Kareem another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.

Then, like a surprise blitz, Kareem’s mom returns to Syria to help her family but can’t make it back home. If Kareem could throw a penalty flag on the fouls of his school and home life, it would be for unnecessary roughness.

Kareem is stuck between. Between countries. Between friends, between football, between parents—and between right and wrong. It’s up to him to step up, find his confidence, and navigate the beauty and hope found somewhere in the middle.

The book, Kareem Between [Bulk, Wholesale, Quantity] ISBN# 9780593699287 in Paperback by Shifa Saltagi Safadi may be ordered in bulk quantities. Minimum starts at 25 copies. Availability based on publisher status and quantity being ordered.