شَجَرَة الرُّمَّان

The Pomegranate Tree

A Hayya Beena Naqraa story · Tier 4 (Novella · رِوَايَة) · For ages 10–12

A short chapter book in three chapters. Heritage learners and intermediate Arabic readers. Vowel marks appear only on harder or less-common words.

Cover page

The Pomegranate Tree

A note before we begin

This book is told in three short chapters. You don't have to read it all at once. After each chapter, there's a small "بَيْنَ الفُصُول · Between the Chapters" moment — a question or a small thing to notice.

The Arabic uses selective vowel marks — only on harder or less common words. Common words go without. This is closer to how grown-up Arabic books are written, and it's a good challenge for readers who are growing.

الفَصْلُ الأَوَّل · Chapter One

The Tree in the Backyard

In Layla's backyard, in a small city in California, there stands a big tree. A pomegranate tree.

It is older than Layla. Older than the house itself, maybe. Its leaves are dark green, its flowers a reddish orange in spring, and in autumn it carries large fruits like red lamps among the branches.

Layla is eleven years old. She has loved the tree since she was little. She plays under it. She reads her books on the wooden chair beside it. But she has never once asked: where did this tree come from?

Sittu — that is what Layla calls her grandmother, the Palestinian word for "grandma" — takes care of the tree every day. She goes out in the morning, her cup of coffee in her hand, and stands under the branches. She touches the leaves. She pulls the small weeds away from the trunk. She talks to the tree in a low voice, in Arabic.

Sometimes Layla hears Sittu say, "Good morning, my dear."

And Layla knows Sittu is not talking to anyone in the house. She is talking to the tree.

One day in October, Layla came home from school and found Sittu sitting under the tree, on the wooden chair. She was holding a single pomegranate in her lap.

"Come here, Layla," Sittu said. "Sit."

Layla sat on the grass, near her grandmother's feet.

"I think you're old enough now," Sittu said, looking down at the pomegranate in her hand. "This tree has a story. And I — I haven't told it to you yet."

Layla looked at Sittu. Then at the tree. The leaves were moving a little in the air.

"Tell me, Sittu."

بَيْنَ الفُصُول · Between the Chapters

Stop for a moment.

Layla has lived with the pomegranate tree her whole life, and never asked where it came from. What objects in your own family — a plant, a piece of jewelry, a kitchen pot, a photograph — carry stories you don't yet know? What might happen if you asked?

الفَصْلُ الثَّاني · Chapter Two

The Seed

Sittu began slowly. As if the words were heavy, and she had to lift them one by one.

"I was about your age. No, younger. I was a small girl in a village in Palestine. The name of the village — it doesn't matter now. What matters is that we had a home. And behind the house stood a big pomegranate tree. Bigger than this one. My grandfather planted it."

She paused.

"In the year 1948, hard things happened in our country. People had to leave their homes. My family too. They told us: 'You'll come back in a week, two weeks.' We took a little clothing. The key to the house. And almost nothing else."

"Before we left the house, my father went to the tree. He picked one pomegranate. Big, red. He put it in my hand and said, 'Carry this, my daughter. This is from our land.'"

"We walked for days. We crossed mountains. We went first to Lebanon, then to Jordan. And on the way, when we had no food left, we opened the pomegranate. We ate its seeds. The whole family. It was so sweet, Layla. I will never forget that taste."

"But — even hungry, small, tired — I knew something. I knew I had to save the seeds. I don't know how I knew. I wrapped them in a small piece of cloth, and put them in my pocket."

"I carried those seeds for thirty years, Layla. Thirty. From a camp in Lebanon to a house in Jordan. Then here, to California, when I married your grandfather. The seeds were always with me, in a small wooden box."

"And when we bought this house — our first house with a backyard — I opened the box. I planted all the seeds in the soil. Only one grew."

Sittu looked up at the tree above her.

"This is the one, Layla. This tree is from my father's tree. From the tree I ate from when I was a little girl, in the village I can never return to."

Layla couldn't speak. The tears came down before she understood why. She put her head on Sittu's knee. And Sittu put her hand on Layla's hair, slowly, slowly.

بَيْنَ الفُصُول · Between the Chapters

Stop again.

Sittu's village is a place she will never see again. She carried a seed, and she planted it, and the tree grew in another country. Is there a place in your family's past — a city, a village, a house — that someone you love has never been able to visit again? What do you carry instead? A recipe? A song? A word? A way of saying hello?

الفَصْلُ الثَّالِث · Chapter Three

The Inheritance

After that day, Sittu began taking Layla with her every morning to the tree.

"This is winter, we prune the branches," Sittu said, showing her how to cut the small branches that had died. "The tree needs this. Like cutting hair. It grows back stronger."

"And this is summer, we water it — but not too much. Pomegranate doesn't like extra water. Its roots are strong. It knows how to find water on its own."

"And in autumn, we look at the skin. When it turns dark red, with some brown lines, the pomegranate is ready. You can also hear it — tap it with your finger. If the sound is like a drum, it's ripe."

Layla wrote everything down in a small notebook. She didn't want to forget.

One autumn day, Sittu said, "Come. This one is ready."

She chose a big pomegranate. She picked it with Layla's hand — Sittu's hand over Layla's hand. They sat on the back step of the house. Sittu opened the pomegranate with a small knife. The red seeds, shining like rubies, appeared inside.

They ate together, hand by hand, seed by seed.

"Layla," Sittu said. "When I'm no longer here, this tree is yours. And when you have a daughter or a son — they will know its story too. We can't go back to the village. But we can keep what came with us."

The next week, at school, Layla's teacher asked each child to write about "something important in my family." Layla wrote a small essay titled "My Tree."

When her teacher read it, she said, "Layla. This is the most beautiful thing you've ever written."

The years passed. Sittu grew older, and then she was gone — quietly, in her bed, on a spring morning. The tree was in bloom that morning.

Layla grew up. She became a woman. She moved to another city — Massachusetts — and had a small daughter, whom she named Salma, after Sittu.

And in the backyard of her new house, Layla dug a small hole in the soil. She planted a small sapling, taken from Sittu's tree — two generations from the original tree, the one in the village, in Palestine.

And she said to her daughter, who was standing beside her, "This is our tree, my love. And it has a story. I'll tell you one day, when you're a little older."

The village we can't return to — it lives, somehow, in California, and in Massachusetts, and wherever the seeds travel next.

We can't go back to the village. But we can keep what came with us.

كَلِمَاتٌ جَدِيدَة · New Words

🗣️ Talk about it

These are not test questions. They are conversation starters — ideal for a quiet kitchen table chat, or on a walk.

1. Sittu waited until Layla was eleven to tell her the story of the tree. Why do you think she waited? Do you think there's a "right age" for hard stories? Or is it more about the right moment?
2. Sittu's father gave her one pomegranate to carry. Of all the things he could have given her, he chose that. Why a pomegranate? What does a seed mean, when you can't take anything else with you?
3. The story ends with Layla planting a sapling in another city, for her own daughter. What does it mean to "keep what came with us," even when we can't go back? Are there things your own family has kept and passed down — recipes, songs, ways of speaking, plants in the garden?

✏️ Try it (one of these, your choice)

• Ask one elder in your family about something they brought with them when they moved — from one country, one city, one house to another. What did they choose to keep? What did they have to leave?
• Plant something. A seed from a fruit you ate. A cutting from a houseplant. Watch it grow. Notice how long it takes. Notice what it needs.
• Draw your family's tree — not a family tree of names, but an actual tree. What kind of tree would it be? What grows on it? Where are its roots? Where do its branches reach?
• Write a short letter to a child in your family who hasn't been born yet — a future niece, nephew, daughter, son. Tell them one thing you want them to know about where your family came from.

A note for grown-ups reading along

This story touches on the Nakba — the displacement of Palestinians from their villages in 1948 — through the lens of one family and one tree. It does so gently and without political argument. The grandmother in this story carries a seed across exile, plants it in California, and passes it to her granddaughter. This is appropriate for ages 10 and up.

If your child is from a Palestinian family — or a Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Sudanese, Armenian, or any family that has known displacement — this story may open important conversations. Read it with them, not just at them. Pause at the Between the Chapters moments. Let them ask. Let them sit with the feelings that come.

For families whose own histories are different, the story still works. The tree could be any inheritance — a recipe, a language, a song, a way of greeting an elder. The shape of the love is the same.

The pomegranate (الرُّمَّان) is a deeply meaningful fruit in Palestinian culture — appearing in poetry, embroidery (tatreez), folk songs, and the courtyards of village homes for centuries. Many Palestinian families in diaspora do, in fact, grow pomegranate trees from seeds carried across the years. This story is fiction, but the practice it describes is real, and ongoing.

On the Arabic: Tier 4 stories use selective vowel marks — only on harder words. This is closer to grown-up Arabic, and a good challenge for readers who already handle Tier 3 comfortably. If your child stumbles, sit with them. Repetition is still the curriculum.

On the dialect: This story is in Modern Standard Arabic, with Palestinian cultural and emotional sensibility. Words like sittu (grandma) are Palestinian spoken Arabic — they appear in the dialogue and in the heart of the story, but not in the narration.

— Hayya Beena Naqraa (هَيَّا بِنَا نَقْرَأ)