Old Enough to Know reactions

Another must-read from Alice Rothchild

Old Enough to Know is a funny, sensitive and poignant rendering of what it's like to be the new kid with a strange name, trying to understand where he belongs in a fourth grade world of bullies, new buddies, and a grandmother whose stories about "life back home" take on an increasing relevance to young Mohammed's efforts to fit in at his new school. Another must-read from Alice Rothchild which, though for middle-aged readers, adds compassion and nuance to readers of all ages' understanding of what it means to be from Palestine, and what children of immigrants navigate.

— Jen Marlowe, author The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker and I Am Troy Davis

Alice Rothchild writes with deepest care and humanity, bringing the lives of children and Palestinian people into clear, delightful, honest focus.

This engaging novel links generations with the verve and hope that has helped Palestinians - the "unchosen Semites" as a Jewish friend recently called us -  survive so many hard, unfair times for so many years.  We need more stories like this to balance the long injustices of tediously unbalanced reporting. It's a healing, joyous book of growth, and understanding.

— Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Habibi, Sitti's Secrets, and The Turtle of Oman

Sensitive and daring, moving and funny, Alice Rothchild's book is brilliantly written.

It unapologetically and truthfully weaves the story of Palestine, then and now, through the life young Mohammad who lives in America. A great book for young people.

— Miko Peled, author of The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five

Poignant and heartbreaking 

More than a story of children struggling to be accepted into a new school, this tale weaves in their family history in another land, a dark narrative of loss and dispossession that also forms their identity. Poignant and heartbreaking, it is a story of reckoning with the past, while trying to navigate the present, in a world that does not understand.

— Fida Jiryis, author of Stranger in My Own Land

Rothchild provides us with relief from these tragic stories with humor and the strong vivid characters

Old Enough to Know is a wonderful, heartbreaking and inspirational journey into the lives of a quirky 9-year-old American boy, Mohammed, and his Palestinian family who have just moved to a new home. As he learns to adjust to life in a smaller town, he begins to learn of his family’s history in Palestine through his grandmother’s stories.  Through these stories, Alice Rothchild touches on so many of the tribulations that the Palestinian people face and have faced since 1948 (the loss of land and loved ones, oppression, the cycle of violence inside and outside the home, collective punishment, child imprisonment and other injustices).  Rothchild provides us with relief from these tragic stories with humor and the strong vivid characters in Mohammed’s life making this painful topic accessible to younger readers. This is a much needed story for young adults, parents and teachers alike. 

 — Laila Taji, Founder of ArabishWay, author of These Chicks and My Grandfather Has a Donkey

Alice Rothchild’s first middle grade book, Old Enough to Know, is a tour de force…

embedding a sweeping view of Palestinian history in a story of recent immigrant children learning to live in America. Middle graders, parents, and middle school teachers will find much here to fire their imaginations. This book is a page turner in its own right, quite apart from its pedagogical values. And it will also help parents and middle schoolers to begin conversations about the topics most important to kids transitioning from childhood to tentative self-definitions: how to be compassionate toward self and others, how to define themselves within the often too rich and too complicated array of options offered to teenagers, how to be interested in the culture and lore, the smells, sounds, tastes of other cultures without caricaturing people into an “exotic other,” how to love nature and your grandparents’ food while being enthralled with a new bicycle or a new computer. A must-read for all Middle Grade collections and schools, and also a compelling story for adults old and young to read.

— Eve Spangler is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston College, the author of Understanding Israel/Palestine: Race, Nation, and Human Rights in the Conflict, a long-term member of Jewish Voices for Peace, and a member of the Advisory Panel of Experts for the United Nations'  Report of the  Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the  Occupied Palestinian Territories, Including East Jerusalem, and Israel

May 19,2024 at a book conversation with students and their families from the Boston Workers Circle shule, I asked students to write a review, a letter to Mohammed, or a poem. Here is the response from Zozia, age 7.

Old Enough to Know

Mohammed is like you and me. Sitti holds the story key. Nattif was a special place.
It had a big disgrace.
Israel took their home.
The kids all moaned.
They walked all day.
They couldn’t really play.
Some were born in caves.
Later crossed the waves.
Mohammed felt more like himself.
I would put the key on a high shelf.