Streets Had A Name

Where the Streets Had a Name, a realistic friction novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah, is a compassionate story of the sights, sounds, and smells of a Palestinian Family whose daily lives are governed by curfews and security check points. Hayaat, a Muslim, and Sam, a Christian, skip school together to take a journey through the war-ridden territory of West Bank, then gets caught up in a deadly protest where they become injured, and they end up back with their families where they witness Jihan, sister of Hayaat, get married. Respect for family, elders, and the importance of hospitality are reoccurring virtues throughout the story.

For decades, Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting over the Gaza Strip. In this novel, Abdel-Fattah does a marvelous job identifying the conflict from the Palestinian point of view. She accurately documents the daily conflicts the family faces. The author makes the importance of family and elders evident throughout the story. When Hayaat leaves her home, she gets a slap across her face by real life. She experiences death, violence, starving children, and many heartbreaking events. The only people that cared about Hayaat was her family. Everyone else looked at her as another corpse, but her family made Hayaat feel loved and cared for. This is more than ever relevant today. None will truly care about you today because everyone has their own issues to deal with.
Those who let grief and hatred build up will eat them up. This is an especially true statement for this novel. In the novel, the family loses their home, and relatives due to the Palestine-Isreali Conflict. They must put up with security check points, and curfews every single day by sinister soldiers. Although there are many reasons to be angry with their lives, they maintain composure because there is nothing they can