Concerns about Habibi

So far from the two books that we have read for this class, I have learned a lot about stereotyping and how it is so easy to do when writing about a certain culture. In the first book that we read, The Heart of a Chief, I noticed major Native American stereotyping throughout the text that really made me dislike the book as whole. I did the QTT paper for Habibi for this past week and I also focused on stereotypes looking at how Arab Americans were portrayed throughout the text. I was so concerned and wrapped up in examining how the author portrayed Arabs and Arab Americans that I didn't even notice the negative portrayal of the Israeli soldiers until we started discussing the issue with the book at West Bloomfield school in class.
I do agree with the school district for removing Habibi from their curriculum, especially since it was being used in a 7th grade classroom. I think that this book would be more appropriate if used in a high school level English class where more in-depth discussion on the portrayal of stereotypes could be conducted. This book does not do a great job at portraying the actual Israeli/Palestine conflict, and I don't think it's the richest piece of diverse literature to be using simply for the sake of its diversity in a middle school language arts classroom. This book would be more useful if it was critiqued by higher level students and if the stereotypes were closely examined by a more mature set of readers.