Sitti's Secrets is a picture book by Naomi Shihab Nye about a little girl's visit with her grandmother in Palestine. From the little girl, Mona's perspective, we are are told of the tremendous distance between the two. Sitti, we learn, is Arabic for Grandma. Mona does not speak Arabic but describes the sound of her Sitti's voice as whooshing "like wind going around corners." She loves the time she spends with her grandmother and they find ways to communicate despite speaking different languages.
This story does a beautiful job of teaching that people are more the same than different, despite differences in language and style of dress. Grandmother's still love grandchildren and vice-versa even when half a world is between them. Mona writes to the President and tells him about her grandmother and her wish for peace. This story makes me hope he read it.
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