KAREEM BETWEEN written by Shafia Safadi, audio read by Peter Romano

Shafia Safadi’s KAREEM BETWEEN is a novel in verse that I concurrently read and listened to, and found both presentations engaging. In text, Safadi’s shape poems are more recognizable, but Peter Romano’s narrative voice is soft, an appropriate tone for middle-child Syrian American Kareem who feels unseen at home and at school. There is a depth in Kareem’s thinking and feelings, revealed through the rhythms of the verses that Romano reads with as much attention as the football idioms and metaphors depicting Kareem’s passion. Romano’s ability to shift between Syrian and American accents further stresses how Kareem is caught between cultures mounting with cruelty to a recent immigrant his age while acting against his integrity to benefit an American friend. Romano’s strengthening emotions witness the deepening of these divisions with the passing of Executive Order 13769 which denies his grandfather needed entry for treatment and his mother’s return home. The Author’s Note provides context with her experience. Find out more about the book and the audio at the purchase link below.