Picture Book

“Learning Empathy, Compassion, and Self-Acceptance from Mooz”

I was born in Baghdad, Iraq and grew up there until I was 11 years old. I remember one time, I was seven years old, my father had just returned from Amman, Jordan, a neighbor country.  His face was beaming with excitement. I could tell he had a surprise for me, my mom and my sister. I was waiting in anticipation when he revealed what he brought cross the border: bananas. I was so excited because we never had bananas in Iraq. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions against Iraq. What that meant was countries weren’t allowed to import food, fruits and vegetables into Iraq. Instead the U.N. would give monthly food basket for families that included wheat, flour, sugar, rice, milk powder, tea, salt, detergents, soaps, beans, lentils and cooking oil. The basket didn’t include any fruits, vegetables, meats. Sadly, bananas weren’t allowed to be imported to Iraq and also they weren’t locally grown. I grew up dreaming about bananas, and I would see the fruit only on television. When my father came back from Amman, he had brought bananas with him and I was so happy. I ate so much and I wanted to eat more of them. My mom said to take a breather and not overeat otherwise, I would get a stomach ache. I wanted to bring some bananas to school. My mom wouldn’t let me do that. She didn’t want other kids to see me with them.  

As a kid, I had a lot of unanswered questions. I didn’t understand why my mama wouldn’t let me bring bananas to school. I quickly learned that not everyone was privileged to eat the fruit. Like my parents, I wanted to grow up to be more empathetic and compassionate. 

In 1998, my family immigrated to Canada and I quickly noticed that bananas were plentiful and cheap. Every time I ate the fruit, I had memories of Iraq and how bananas weren’t imported locally. Things have changed in 2003 during the Iraq War. All the sanctions were removed. Bananas became plentiful. I was happy to see Iraqi children being able to eat the fruit. My heart was with all the children who lived through war-stricken Iraq.  

For many years, I wanted to bring the story of bananas in Iraq to life. When my son Malek was born, I knew that I wanted to turn the story into a children’s picture book. As such, I wrote Banana Dream. The story is about Mooz, an Iraqi boy growing up in war-stricken Iraq. His name means Banana in Arabic and he dislikes his name because he feels left out, like an outsider, when all his cousins were named Ali and Mohammad. His classmates mock his name and make fun of him because he was named after a fruit and that was such a strange thing. Mooz was always curious about his name so he asked his mother about it. His mama tells him the story of his birth. After years of being unable to get pregnant, she dreamed that she was feeding a baby a banana. After she told Mooz’s father about the dream, he drove for hours to Amman, Jordan to find her some bananas, and soon after, Mooz was born. After hearing this story, Mooz’s perception of his own name changes for the better. He becomes proud of his name and even defends his classmates who mocked him once again. He has a new appreciation of his name. The story also highlights Mooz’s dream of eating bananas too after sanctions were removed after the Iraq war. I wanted to show the thrill and excitement of Mooz eating a banana for the very first time. It is the same feeling I was having when I had a banana for the first time. It was such a magical feeling. 

I hope with Banana Dream, kids of all ages can learn to be empathetic and compassionate toward anyone who is not as privileged. I knew that I was writing a story about war so I treated it with extra sensitivity. I hope that the young readers will have empathy for Mooz as he goes through his journey of self-acceptance. 

When I wrote this story, I wrote it for my son, Malek, because I want him to read Mooz’s story so he can he learn about the time when bananas weren’t grown in Iraq and they were only just a dream. I hope that Malek and all kids who read the book will have a new appreciation of the fruit. May the story bring joy to all readers and also may it remind them not to take anything for granted. This experience has helped me appreciate the little things in life that I otherwise would not have paid attention to. 

Published July 11th, 2023 by Neal Porter Books

About the Book: A young boy in Iraq yearns to taste the bananas that have been made unavailable by warfare.

Growing up in Iraq after the Gulf War, Mooz didn’t always like his name, which means “banana”. But when he learns the story behind it, he’s proud, even when being teased by his classmates. Now all he yearns for is to taste a banana—a lofty dream in a time when few countries are trading with Iraq, where bananas don’t grow.

Inspired by author Hasan Namir’s own childhood, Banana Dream is at once a celebration of a seemingly ordinary fruit and a snapshot of how war can alter a landscape. Artist Daby Zainab Faidhi’s background in architectural illustration is evident as she brings the story’s setting vividly to life.

★ “This vibrantly illustrated picture book introduces children to the toll of war through a relatable experience: learning the meaning of one’s name. Mooz emerges as a fully formed, layered character, while the Iraq setting is richly drawn. The stylized artwork has an appropriately dreamy feel in places. What’s in a name? Plenty, as this clever and poignant tale makes clear.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

About the Author: Hasan Namir is an award- winning Iraqi-Canadian children’s book author. His debut picture book was The Name I Call Myself. He has also published books of poetry and a novel. He lives in Vancouver with his family. 

Visit him online at HasanNamir.com
Twitter – @HNamir
Instagram – @Hasan.Namir

https://holidayhouse.com/book/banana-dream/
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook – @HolidayHouseBks

Thank you, Hasan, for bringing us Mooz who will truly help readers grow!

“Unpacking the Layers of Meaning Hidden within a Picture Book”

On its face a picture book can seem like a simple thing. After all, most picture books are composed of a mere 16 spreads and a handful of words, plus a jacket, a case, end papers and a title page (all worth taking careful note of!). And yet a good picture book is a multi-layered, complex balancing act with many elements. Ideally, it works on several levels with layers of meaning woven within it that are revealed with repeat readings.

As an author and illustrator, I am fortunate to be able to toggle between visual and textual storytelling and allow a kind of play between the words and pictures. I can build secrets within the illustrations that continue to reveal new things upon multiple visits. I create my collages by hand, working with vintage ephemera, a material that I choose because I love the fact that each piece comes with built-in, hidden stories. One more layer of complexity. My goal is to build depth within my books, so that when they are used in a classroom, they can help foster meaningful discussions, cultivate careful observations, and to deepen visual and textual literacy. In the Night Garden, at first read, might seem to be simply a good night book. It has a lulling rhythm and takes place at night and ends with the phrase “Sleep tight.” An alert reader will notice a black cat who is on every page, and who chaperones the reader through the story, and functions as the narrator. The reader might also notice the passage of seasons within the illustrations. Certain spreads have interesting treats waiting to be discovered, for example the “visual onomatopoeia” in the illustration of the crickets and bullfrogs songs. Or the fact that hidden in the spread of the girl’s bedroom at the end of the book, there are objects from all of the previous spreads. Can you find them?

There are personal nuggets hidden within my books as well. I am a long-time fan of Al Hirschfeld’s illustrations. He always included his daughter’s name, Nina, within his illustrations. I have done this as well. The name of my daughter, Thea, is somewhere, hiding within the illustrations in all of my books including In the Night Garden. You will need sharp eyes, but I bet you can find it. Also keep an eye out for the letter T…as in Thea! In the Night Garden was in part inspired by Thea’s fear of the dark and difficulty in going to sleep at night. I think many children have some anxiety around this transition, and I hope that celebrating the beauty of the darkness will be useful. We used to lie out on the porch, gazing at the stars and identifying unfamiliar sounds as a way to ease her fear. This became a treasured ritual and part of the inspiration of In the Night Garden. My burgeoning love of gardening also inspired the book. I grew up around talented gardeners and I always longed to have my own bit of dirt to garden in. Now that we have our house in the country, I am insatiable. I find it a delight to watch the changes in the garden as seasons pass. There are often magical moments that happen: There was one early morning where I spotted a trio of fox cubs splashing playfully in our stream, and one autumn dusk when a hoot owl was only a few feet away, gazing steadily at me from our apple tree. We watch the dance of fireflies in the summer, and the whirl of bats that swirl above us in the early evening; we marvel at the silent transformation that occurs after a heavy snowfall. In some ways the book is an ode to Cupcake, the name our daughter gave our house, this place that we love. As you can see, it is deeply personal!

Finally, and also deeply personal, there is a more profound meaning tucked within the simplicity of In the Night Garden. I hope that the book inspires awe and wonder about nature and night time, as well as about seasons and the sometimes dazzling and sometimes subtle transformations that the natural world helps to highlight. I hope it lulls the reluctant sleeper to sleep. But it is more important to me that In the Night Garden works on a deeper level. I hope that the book can spark curiosity and initiate discussions about learning to explore the unfamiliar in a broader sense. I think fearing the unknown is universal, especially in childhood which is filled with newness and uncertainty. It is my deep wish that In the Night Garden can serve as a tool to start conversations about openness to things we aren’t familiar with, and that it will encourage readers to learn about new things, new people, new ideas. I hope that these conversations can help institute an openness to the “other”, something that I think is incredibly important, especially in these divisive times.

As you can see, picture books are not so simple!

Published July 4th, 2023 by Neal Porter Books

About the Book: A gentle, collage-illustrated bedtime read about the often mysterious and always beautiful experiences to be found in nighttime spaces.

In the night garden fireflies look like fallen stars.
Moonflowers unfurl and release their intoxicating perfume.

In the night garden you can lie
on the cool grass and look up to the
millions and trillions of stars…

In the night garden, nothing is as it seems and everything is made new. Blinking stars and pale moonlight might reveal a lone cat tiptoeing across a roof, luminous flowers unfurling in the cool air, a mama fox escorting her sleepy cubs home. Listen closely and you might hear the wind blowing through the trees, the murmur of a slow stream, or the gentle song of crickets and bullfrogs, lulling you to sleep.

Carin Berger is the award-winning author of The Little Yellow Leaf, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. With soothing words and spectacularly detailed, hand-cut collage artwork, she has fashioned a bedtime book like no other. Curious readers will be rewarded when they look for the mysterious cat that appears on every page!

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

★  “In tandem, the text and art endow nighttime with a sense of whimsy and wonder, and for little ones readying for bed, they’ll find comfort and reassurance for sweeter dreams.”—Booklist, Starred Review

★ “Nighttime is the right time for young readers thanks to this perfect amalgamation of soothing text and image.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

★ “Carin Berger’s sweet, gentle bedtime story is more than just a pretty face; it fully captures the imagination. Using her own garden as a muse, Berger (Finding Spring) takes the unease out of nighttime. . . .”—BookPage, Starred Review

★ “Berger’s attention to detail in the art, alongside her sophisticated and accessible text, creates a magical nighttime world. This spellbinding picture book will undoubtedly hold children in that glorious tension between wide-eyed curiosity and heavy-lidded drowsiness before they drift off to sleep.”—The Horn Book, Starred Review

About the Author: CARIN BERGER is the award-winning author and illustrator of almost a dozen picture books for children, including The Little Yellow Leaf, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book; All of Us; and Finding Spring. She is also the illustrator of Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky, and Are We Pears Yet? by Miranda Paul. She and her family divide their time between NewYork City and “Cupcake,” their home in the Hudson Valley. Carin spends all of her spare time tending her garden. Cupcake makes an appearance in and was the inspiration for In the Night Garden. 

http://www.carinberger.com/
@carinberger on Twitter
@carinbergerdesign on Instagram
https://holidayhouse.com/book/in-the-night-garden/

Thank you, Carin, for reminding our readers about the complexity of picture books and their importance in our society!

“Building Empathy”

When I was a young girl, I was an avid reader. I did not have the distractions that are seemingly everywhere today. I picked up anything I could get my hands on, but I was most attracted to stories with a main character that was trying to find their place in the world. If the writing was very good, I was drawn into the story and felt deeply connected to the protagonist. I had the best of two worlds. I spent my formative years living in an apartment building in Brooklyn, and every summer I would go to sleep away camp in the Catskills. I loved the excitement of playing outdoor games with friends in our building’s courtyard, but always looked forward to the calming peace of the woods and lake at camp. It’s no wonder that I would seek out books with these familiar themes.

When I was doing research to prepare for writing my debut book A Flag for Juneteenth, I googled, listened to podcasts, and read books about slavery in America. I also looked at pictures of enslaved people which helped me to imagine their personalities and lives. One picture of a little girl that I found on the Library of Congress website seemed to embody the spirit of my heroine, and I kept her image in mind as I developed the character.

I wanted my main character’s name to be unusual, one that would be new to my readers. I envisioned this character to be a prophet, one who could bear witness to the announcement of the end of slavery as a legal institution in America and could also foretell a future free of bondage. I googled biblical female prophets and an image of a beautiful Black woman appeared on my screen. Her name was Huldah. As soon as I saw her, I knew that this would be the name of my main character. Eve, the name of Huldah’s baby sister, is also biblical. It is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “to breathe”, or “to live”. In my story Eve is an infant. She will have the opportunity to live her life without the burden of enslavement. One other character in my story has a name. Mr. Menard is the oldest man on the plantation. He has the last name of Michel B. Menard, the first plantation owner in Galveston Texas where my story takes place. I thought that it was important to demonstrate that enslaved people were often given the last name of their enslavers to erase any connection to their own family lineage.

I thought about ways to help young readers to be interested in an event in history that is rarely taught in schools, and to feel connected to a reality so far removed from their own. I knew that I would need to draw them in early in the story and decided to start with my main character feeling excited about her upcoming birthday celebration. Huldah is a mature, curious, insightful little girl. She has the very ‘grown up’ responsibility of caring for her baby sister during the day while her parents labor on the plantation. The reader meets Huldah for the first time on the day before her 10^th birthday, which fell on a Sunday that year. Sundays were a day for rest and reconnecting with family and community. Huldah’s mom baked Huldah’s favorite tea cakes for her upcoming birthday, a luxury she may not have had time for when the long work hours started again the next day. The characters in my book are purposefully faceless. I am hoping that my readers will see themselves in the story and connect with the characters on a deeper level.

I am incredibly proud to have illustrated this book with quilting, an art form that was used by my ancestors to tell their own stories. When planning the illustrations, I tried to keep the text in mind, and made decisions about what aspects of the text I thought needed to be enhanced. For example, the first page describes tea cakes, a type of traditional cookie that enslaved people made using simple pantry ingredients. I thought that it was important to help my readers visualize a teacake, so I set out to create them using one of the brown fabrics from my stash that had some color variations. Teacakes were not fancy back then, but they were delicious and smelled amazing, so I used hand embroidered lettering to show the movement of the scent wafting through the air. The illustrations took a little over a year to create. It was an enormous undertaking and a very emotional journey. Because the people in this book have no faces, I had to figure out how to give Huldah depth and to showcase her personality in other ways. I also needed to make her consistent and recognizable in every illustration. That is no easy task when working with fabric on such a small scale! I remember telling a friend that I felt as though Huldah had become like a daughter to me. I felt a deep connection to the character.

When teaching about this troubling time in American history, I feel that is critical to highlight the beauty and resilience of African and African American people during their enslavement, as well as to showcase how important strong family and community ties was to them then and continues to be today. As educators we should not leave out what life was like for enslaved people when they were not laboring. Although difficult, these were people who did all that they could to connect with their immediate and extended families, and to build a sense of community despite such oppressive circumstances. By humanizing them we build empathy and help our young readers to see their commonalities rather than their differences. Hopefully this will encourage them to want to learn more about this significant time in American history.

Published

About the Book: This powerful title shares a unique story of the celebration of the first Juneteenth, from the perspective of a young girl. 

A Flag for Juneteenth depicts a close-knit community of enslaved African Americans on a plantation in Texas, the day before the announcement is to be made that all enslaved people are free. Young Huldah, who is preparing to celebrate her tenth birthday, can’t possibly anticipate how much her life will change that Juneteenth morning. The story follows Huldah and her community as they process the news of their freedom and celebrate together by creating a community freedom flag.  

Kim Taylor sets A Flag for Juneteenth apart from other Juneteenth books by applying her skills as an expert quilter. Each of the illustrations has been lovingly hand sewn and quilted, giving the book a homespun, tactile quality that will appeal to readers young and old.

Educators’ Guide: 

About the Author: Kim Taylor is a speech language pathologist and Department Supervisor at a large school for deaf children. She is also an expert quilter whose works have been exhibited at several venues throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Kim’s quilts reflect African American life, and she tells stories through her materials. After researching the origins of the Juneteenth celebration, she created a Juneteenth story quilt which she has exhibited and presented in dozens of local schools. Realizing that many teachers and students were unaware of the holiday, she was moved to write this book. She lives in Baldwin, New York. 

To see more of Kim’s quilts, visit her website at MaterialGirlStoryQuilts.com or visit her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/comfortzne1.

Thank you, Kim, for this beautiful post about empathy!