The Flag of Childhood

The Flag of Childhood: Poems from the Middle East. Ed. Naomi Shihab Nye. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2002.

The Flag of Childhood is a touching, soft, and poignant collection of short poems from the Middle East, ranging in perspectives from 4-year-olds (though probably written by an adult) to old men. It discusses issues pertinent to the Middle East while at the same time attempting to bridge the gap between it and dominant Western culture. The introduction in the beginning talks of the need to grow in perspectives and knowledge, particularly of this largely unfamiliar region, as well as the need to discover universal truths across the globe and how poetry helps one to do this. The flag of childhood, for instance, is something that all have in common at some point in our lives, and thus is something that the whole world needs to celebrate and protect.

In effect, the entire collection is a blend of poems talking about day-to-day life in the Middle East, with references to things like “beads” and ceremonies that require a bit of pre-teaching, as well as issues that span the globe, like poverty, death, and innocence. The sentence structures, vocabulary, and verses are definitely very simple, though rich with meaning and so would make a very good high school text. It has the syntactical and vocabulary level matching that of a middle school, but I think the content matter would better be understood in the high school level. At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t know how I’d teach this book in a classroom because the poems seemed a little removed from our world with little background knowledge, but as I kept reading them I discovered little universal truths here and there, started inferring what certain Middle Eastern references could mean, and gained a feel for the communities these poems took place, and I started to become much more engaged. The poems are self-sufficient, but in teaching this book I would definitely recommend pre-teaching a little bit about Middle Eastern culture, current events, etc. (I know, easier said than done….), as well as reading through several poems as a class to connect all of this. This book would easily work with a multimodal project or something else we went over with poetry lessons. It wasn’t my absolute favorite book, but it wasn’t bad. I would recommend it!