The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

Author : Michelle Cohen Corasanti
Title : The Almond Tree
Punished : 2012
Publisher : Garnet Publishing Ltd
Pages : 348
Genre : Historical Fiction

     Gifted with a mind that continues to impress the elders in his village, Ichmad Hamid struggles with the knowledge that he can do nothing to save his friends and family. Living on Occupied land, his entire village operates in constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, and belongings. But more importantly, they fear to lose each other. On Ichmad's twelfth birthday, that fear becomes reality. With his father imprisoned, his family's home and possessions confiscated, and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict. Ichmad begins an inspiring journey using his intellect to save his poor and dying family. In doing so he reclaims a love for others that was lost through a childhood rife with violence and discovers a new hope for the future.

     This region of the world has long held some fascination for me, it all started when I watched a t.v show called the key. It Is the crucible from which most of what has happened in the world can be traced back to. And with that comes a great deal of bloodshed and harm. I realize it is a very difficult subject to approach. This is not so much walking on a knife edge as it is how hard you will hit the ground. I feel that no matter how you approach it a large group of people will be offended by what you have to say. It is a place that is so foreign to me that any thoughts I may get are overwritten by the next thing I read or person that I speak to. But to take on reading this book I hoped would give me a much more human insight into this land so far away. 

     The book its self covers a great deal of time in the life of one man, in doing so the author took me right into the heart of what it means to be displaced in a land that your family has lived in for hundreds if not thousands of years. And while I'm sure that some will argue that it gives a very one-sided view of the conflict, you have to start somewhere. She took me into the heart of what it means to live in fear that everything you have ever know can be taken away at the stroke of a pen. I feel this is not just something felt by those who live in the occupied lands. It is feeling that many across the world deal with every day. It is something I myself find hard to imagine, We take for granted far to often the relative comfort we live in. It is also the story of a boy gifted way beyond what most would come to expect from someone like him. I think too often we feel that being intelligent is a gift only given to the so-called developed world. How somehow being born into a world of economic advantages gives us something more.  It is I suppose and arrogance we are born into only exacerbated by the media that tells us that such places are full of ignorant dirt poor people or terrorists.  It is a myth I think should have been broken a long time ago. 

     For Hamid it is a constant struggle, he is someone who wants to do the best and achieve much in life despite being held back by the sheer fact of where he comes from. I suppose it would be far to easy to let anger and pain get the better of him and to become exactly what they are calling him. But For Hamid, he is one of those people that refuses to bow down to such stereotypes. These are the people that shine brightest in the world pushing back the dark and hoping to let others follow behind, with each one bring a bit more good into the world. But as you would imagine from a book set here things are never going to follow a straight path. There was always going to be suffering, and the author shows this to us in a very visual way. These sections were so raw for me to read and having built up such a connection with our hero it only makes it all the more heartbreaking. The story has clearly taken the author a great deal of time and consideration to create. At least from my very narrow point of view, she seems to have tried to keep it on an even keel when coming to lay blame. 

     This is a book of love, loss, and pain, but also about moving beyond trying to create a better world. She shows us that somethings can never truly be gotten over. It is how we learn to mold these emotions into something positive. To take all this hurt and turn it back on its self-multiplying it into something better.  I feel it is a book I will cherish for the rest of my life, it also has given me the mindset to explore this world more by which every means happens to come my way.