Thunderbird, Book Three, by Sonia Nimr, for Timeslip Tuesday

Thunderbird, Book Three, by Sonia Nimr (September 10, 2024 by Ctr for Middle Eastern Studies UT-Austin), is the final book in the story of a Palestinian girl, Noor, who must travel back in time to find the feathers of the Thunderbird in order to save our present-day world from monsters.

I really loved the first book. In my review I said "I completely agree with the conclusion of the Kirkus review (which is how I found out about this one)--"This richly descriptive novel paints a moving portrait of a lost, lonely girl; a historic land with a painful past and present; and an enchanting magical world. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for more."

And I enjoyed the second even more. From my review--"It is a lovely mix of the magical (the boundaries between our world and the supernatural world are starting to slip....) and the historical; very satisfying both as middle grade time travel and as plucky girl adventure! It's a fairly short, tightly written book, with humor alongside of tension and heartfelt emotion, and it's a vivid portrayal of this particular moment in time. Of course "let's save the precious library!" is a plot I am always there for, and fortunately I wasn't kept in too much desperate tension...."

This time she is plunged back to Byzantine Jerusalem in 638 CE, just as Omar ibn al-Kahttab is about to conquer what was then a Christian city.  As was the case with the first two books, she starts her quest for the feather by finding allies--this time a brother and sister with a magical gift for healing.  But rather than an exploration of this part of Jerusalem's history, with real world obstacles such as are to be expected in perilous times, to be overcome, the book turns into an other world fantasy adventure .

Noor and her new friends are captured by monstrous devouring worm creatures, and escape from them to find themselves in a world of gentle telepaths.  This world is under genocidal attack from monstrous, devouring invaders, and it is up to Noor and her new friends, with help from her companion Sabeeka, a djinn who takes the form of a cat, to lead these people in fighting back for the sake of their future.  Once this is successfully accomplished (and if you like fantasy battles you'll find this good reading--lots if ingenuity, unlikely allies, and fantastical creatures), it's back to Jerusalem where the finding the Thunderbird features feels like an anticlimax.

This third book in the series didn't work for me. I was not expecting a fantasy adventure that explicitly underlined a parallel to Palestine vs Isreal, with the Israelis irredeemably monstrous.  Even if this had not been the case, I would have been disappointed not get the cross-cultural, historically rich, time travel experience I'd hoped for.  Additionally, Noor's story began with real world sadness and trauma, and I would have liked this emotional arc to be more fully resolved.