The Reading Warehouse

There's an Ethiopian; there's an Ethiopian I heard them shouting. I looked behind me, but I couldn't see any Ethiopian. Children began crowding round me, and I still didn't realize that they meant me, I was the Ethiopian.

Meskerem was born in a small town in the Golan Heights of Israel, to an Ethiopian mother and an American father. Soon after Operation Solomon, when several thousand Ethiopian immigrants were brought to Israel, Meskerem's parents decided to move to the center of the country, to the town of Herzelia. Meskerem comes face-to-face with the ignorance and prejudices of her new classmates, many of whom are meeting someone dark-skinned for the first time. With the help of her Ethiopian grandmother, who remained in Kazerin, Meskerem comes to terms with who she is and finds strength in belonging to three different cultures.

Naomi Shmuel is an author of more than 15 books, as well as an illustrator and anthropologist. She was the author of the first children's books in Hebrew to feature characters of color. Born in England, she began writing for her own children following their encounters with bias: her husband made the long and difficult journey on foot from Ethiopia to Sudan in order to reach Israel. The Hebrew version of Call Me Meskerem won the international Anderson Prize. She lives in Israel.

Avi Katz, best known as the illustrator of Jerusalem Report magazine, has illustrated over 100 books. He lives in Israel.