Author Alice Rothchild: Old Enough to Know

All ages are welcome to join us in the Readings Gallery to celebrate Old Enough to Know, a middle grade novel that explores identity and understanding.

FREE FAMILY EVENT! Click here to reserve your spot or pre-order a copy of Old Enough to Know!*

Nine-year-old Mohammed Omar Mohammed Abu Srour and his 16-year-old sister move to a new city where they face a challenging first week of school. Their grandmother grounds them in her story: from a peasant village in Palestine, struggling for survival in Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, to coming to the US.

“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

“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

Alice Rothchild, author, filmmaker, and physician, is focused on human rights and social justice. She writes and lectures widely, is the author of a number of books addressing health and human rights issues in Israel/Palestine, and a young adult and a middle grade novel that explore the region for young people. She was last in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in August 2023.