From Somalia to Snow: How Central Minnesota Became Home to Somalis, by Hudda Ibrahim “From Somalia to Snow: How Central Minnesota Became Home to Somalis gives readers an invaluable insider’s look into the lives and culture of our Somali neighbors and the important challenges they face. Designed with a diverse audience in mind, this book is a must-read for students, health-care professionals, business owners, social service agencies, and anyone who wants to better understand the Somali people.

In providing a great understanding of Somali culture, tradition, religion, and issues of integration and assimilation, this book also focuses on why thousands of Somali refugees came to live in this cold, snowy area with people of predominantly European descent.”

This was such an interesting book to read!! I first heard about it from one of our members, who said Ms. Ibrahim would be talking about her new book at an event at St. Cloud Technical and Community College. She is a faculty member there, and as you can see the community turned out to celebrate her work!

When Ms. Ibraham spoke, it was so interesting! And the people who introduced her at the event had such glowing things to say – I had to  know more!

I am new to Minnesota, and was surprised to find such thriving Somali culture here; and I have so much to learn about my new community in general. So a book that helps me to learn more about people in the community is helpful for me personally! (If everything about Minnesota, and libraries, had an easy to read book, I would understand so much more about my new environment!)

And I think it would be helpful for anyone who wants to learn more about their Somali neighbors. Mayor David Kleis gave a testimonial printed on the back of the book: “I highly recommend this book to educational institutions, the business community, healthcare departments, and anyone who works and continues to build for community.” As library people, we work to serve our community members; and understanding interests and needs is a key part of that!

Her book is broken into easy-to-follow chapters:

• Overview of Somalia history
• Immigrants, refugees, and identities
• Culture and religion
• integration and assimilation
• Business
• New immigrants’ health challenges.

You can definitely read straight through it pretty quickly; or you can dip into different sections of interest. I initially started flipping through the pages, not intending to read it that day. But as I got sucked into the information being shared, I would realized I had missed a point earlier in the chapter, so quickly zipped back to start the chapter from the beginning. And I eventually had to just start at the first page and go straight through – because I so wanted to see how it all unfolded! It is a quick read – I did it in one day; but it is something you will want to return to, as you have more questions or want to see what you might have missed!

CMLE is establishing a professional skills lending library for our members. So, we encourage you to buy it (click the link at the top to buy from Amazon and give CMLE a little of the sales price!); or you can check it out from our member libraries – always a good idea! But we can also loan you our copy. Contact us to get our copy for your reading enjoyment!

And we have updated our Google Map, to show our progress in reading across Minnesota! (Click the link, or search for “CMLE Reads Across Minnesota” for the map.)

Do you have suggestions for this series? Send them in!