Children of the Stone: The Power of Music in a Hard Land

One of our top-selling authors -- especially, enduringly, in paperback: The Lemon Tree, now in a beautifully redesigned edtion, has sold over 125k copies in paperback; it's one of our top ten paperbacks every week -- largely driven by indies. It's also sold 45k in e. Sandy has never stopped promoting -- and we can expect Children of the Stone to have a similarly long, fruitful life.

Sandy Tolan is the author of Me & Hank and The Lemon Tree. As cofounder of Homelands Productions, Tolan has produced dozens of radio documentaries for NPR and PRI. He has also written for more than forty magazines and newspapers. His work has won numerous awards, and he was a 1993 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and an I. F. Stone Fellow at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He is an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

An astonishing story related with admirable talent. Tolan offers a skillful mix of reportage with heart bursting inspiration; the kind of mix that informs while awakening compassion and hope . . . In this way, Children of the Stone is a book to be studied as well as enjoyed. It should be savored, shared and argued about. Perfect material for a reading group.
Eye-opening . . . Tolan's exhaustive research and journalistic attention to detail shine through every page of this sweeping chronicle.
[Tolan] portrays the multigenerational Israeli-Palestinian conflict by focusing on the life and musical abilities of one youngster, Ramzi Hussein Aburedwan, and his family and friends . . . This is an engrossing and powerful story, moving skillfully amid the failure of the never-ending battles and 'peace' talks between Israel and Palestine and the determination of one brave young man to change his world.
A resolute, heart-rending story of real change and possibility in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse.
Tolan has made his reputation writing in-depth, reconstructive journalism about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Here he looks at a moderately successful effort by Israeli Danial Barenboim and the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said to create an orchestra comprising Israeli and Palestinian musicians. . . It could stand as a metaphor for the enduring conflict and efforts to resolve it.
A non-fiction account that reflects one individual's belief in the power of music and culture to transform lives. His story is proof of the famous words of Margaret Mead--'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.'
Somewhere amidst the separation barriers and the countless checkpoints, the refugee camps and the demolished homes, the fruitless negotiations and endless conflict, there is a people yearning for a life of dignity and normalcy. You won't see them on TV or in many newspapers. But you will find them in The Children of Stone, Sandy Tolan's moving account of the dispossessed children of Palestine, and the transformative power that music has had in giving them meaning and reason for hope.
Children of the Stone is alive with compassion, hope, and great inspiration. It is not necessary to believe in music's power to defeat evil in order to be enchanted by this wonderful story.
Sandy Tolan's narrative artistry fuses the coming of age of a talented, ambitious, and fiercely dedicated musician with the story of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories conquered in 1967. A major contribution to our understanding of who they are and essential to a political resolution of the conflict.
Sandy Tolan has produced another gem on what is happening under the surface in Palestine. The book contains enthralling biographical trajectories of ordinary people fighting against the odds. Written in the style of investigative journalism, the book is riveting and uplifting, without skirting issues of contestation and controversy.
[Children of the Stone is] a symphony of international locations, big ideas and human dramas . . . a deeply moving parable of struggle and mastery--over an instrument, over painful injustice and ultimately over self.
Sandy Tolan sympathetically lays bare the stresses behind the monolithic WEDO façade, as musicians whose off-stage lives couldn't be more different--comfortable affluence for the Israelis, poverty and hardship for the Arabs--find themselves in entrenched opposition in their stances over the West Bank occupation.
[A]mbitious . . . Tolan excels as a dogged reporter, and his musical descriptions amplify his core themes.