Cirrus@Austlit

'Friday is always the best day at Adam's house. It's doughnut day!

'But this week, his family is fasting for Ramadan. They aren't going to eat or drink until the sun sets.

'Adam wants to fast too, but it's so hard. Can he wait that long for his very special doughnut?' (Publication summary)

'There are eleven words for love, and my family knows them all.

'A family flees their homeland to find safety in another country, carrying little more than a suitcase full of love.

'As their journey unfolds, the oldest child narrates 11 meanings for love in Arabic as her family show, and are shown, all different kinds of love in their new home, and they also remember the love they have for their homeland and for those left behind or lost along the way.

'In the Arabic language, there are over 50 words describing the degrees of love. That's 50 stories, 50 life-worlds. This lyrical and heartwarming book takes you on a journey through 11 of these Arabic expressions for love.' (Publication summary)

'OUR STORIES is a funny, relatable and engaging new early-chapter book series that celebrates Australia's multicultural society with authors and illustrators from a diverse range of backgrounds. Everything changes when Granny comes to stay. She doesn't drive, she cooks strange foods, and she thinks Destroyer Discs are just toys! But when Granny finally leaves, will things go back to the way they were?' (Publication summary)

'"One minute you're a 15-year old girl who loves Netflix and music and the next minute you're looked at as maybe ISIS."

'The generation born at the time of the 9/11 attacks are turning 18. What has our changed world meant for them?

'We now have a generation – Muslim and non-Muslim – who have grown up only knowing a world at war on terror. These young people have been socialised in a climate of widespread Islamophobia, surveillance and suspicion. An unparalleled security apparatus around terrorism has grown alongside fears over young people's radicalisation and the introduction into schools and minority communities of various government-led initiatives to counter violent extremism.

'In Coming of Age in the War on Terror Randa Abdel-Fattah, a leading scholar and popular writer, interrogates the impact of all this on young people's trust towards adults and the societies they live in and their political consciousness. Drawing on local interviews but global in scope, this book is the first to examine the lives of a generation for whom the rise of the far-right, the discourse of Trump and Brexit and the growing polarisation of politics seems normal in the long aftermath of 9/11. It's about time we hear what they have to say.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Although there are 22 separate Arab nationalities representing an enormous variety of cultural backgrounds and experiences, the portrayal of Arabs in Australia tends to range from homogenising (at best) to racist pop-culture caricatures.

'Edited by award-winning author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, and activist and poet Sara Saleh, and featuring contributors Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Ruby Hamad and Paula Abood, among many others, this collection explores the experience of living as a member of the Arab diaspora in Australia and includes stories of family, ethnicity, history, isolation, belonging and identity.'  (Publication summary)

'During my doctoral fieldwork researching Islamophobia from the point of view of the ‘Islamophobes’, I spent many weekends in the town of Bayside on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where my parents had bought a holiday house. I had detected that Bayside’s unmistakable Anglo-Australian majority population was ‘disrupted’ in the holiday season and long weekends when many ethnic and religious minorities from Western Sydney descended on the town. Among the crowds was a highly visible and growing Lebanese Muslim tourist population. One evening I was walking with my father when a car slowed down beside us. One of its occupants, a young Anglo guy, leant out of the window, yelled, ‘Go back home you bunch of pumpkin seeds!’ and promptly sped off.' (Introduction)

'We were waiting at the tram stop on Sydney Road when the traffic light turned red. An old bottle-green Corolla stopped in front of us, a bunch of white guys inside. ‘Informer’ was blasting from their stereo system. I stifled a groan. One of them leant out of the car window, staring straight ahead at us. He locked eyes with Elif, who was standing beside me.' (Introduction)

'A boy. A girl. Two families. One great divide.

When Michael meets Mina, they are at a rally for refugees - standing on opposite sides. Mina fled Afghanistan with her mother via a refugee camp, a leaky boat and a detention centre. Michael's parents have founded a new political party called Aussie Values. They want to stop the boats. Mina wants to stop the hate. When Mina wins a scholarship to Michael's private school, their lives crash together blindingly. A novel for anyone who wants to fight for love, and against injustice' (Pan Macmillan).

Best friends Jodie, Rania and Deyana can't believe what they have found in the school library - a mysterious book that writes itself, just for them. Jodie's life is difficult enough - her father is in a new relationship and she's trying to get used to having a step-sister. The advice the book is giving her is so confusing. Who is the ghostly writer? What does she want? (Source: Bookseller's website)

‘The daily life of Muslim women.’ ‘An understanding of the women behind the veils.’ ‘A compelling insight into women in the Muslim world.’ This is what the blurb of Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women promises the reader.' (Introduction)