Martin Luther King Jr. Fellows Salim Salim and Mohammed Alkhaleeli our leader and visionary Kirsten Cappy at the Portland Public Library’s launch of I’M YOUR NEIGHBOR

I am with Maria Padian (right), author of OUT OF NOWHERE, “a novel rich and multidimensional addressing the Muslim experience in America.” (SLJ)

Daniella and Mariejeann at the I’M YOUR NEIGHBOR Book Club launch

I’m Your Neighbor in all the languages of Maine’s communites

Portland, Maine celebrates nine books set in Maine’s “new arrival” communities with a 2013 city-wide read. Writers include South Sudanese memoirist, Aruna Kenyi in The Telling’s Room’s anthology I REMEMBER WARM RAIN.  High school students who are named by the NAACP as Martin Luther King Jr. Fellows introduced each of the nine books.  A high school student at Deering High introduced The Good Braider, saying he too had been a refugee like Viola. He moved from describing Viola’s journey to his own journey as a young boy leaving Iraq and living in a refugee camp in Turkey before coming to Maine.  I suspect Salim, like Aruna,  will write his won story and the story of his Iraq. Salim’s introduction was an essay, linking his life with his response to a book.  We were all so moved at the event so beautifully organized by Kirsten Cappy with Annie Sibley O’Brien, my heros.  Kehramans.  My new word, taught to me by Salim and Mohammed. It means hero in Turkish.