Cultural Insights: Books featuring Middle Eastern and Muslim characters

 

Cultural Insights: Books featuring Middle Eastern and Muslim characters 

Are you looking to increase your cultural competency?  While weeding the collection last month, we were sad to notice that our books with Middle Eastern and/or Muslim characters have not been circulating very well and thought the advent of Eid-al-Fitr this week would be a good time to highlight them.  There are relatively few books published each year with Middle Eastern characters and still a lot of prejudice and bias against Arab Americans and Muslims that comes through in media portrayals.  How many positive portrayals of Middle Eastern characters do you see in the movies? (We’d truly like to know! Feel free to comment below.)

Some good basics to know:  What is Eid-al-Fitr? It is the Festival of Sweets, coming at the end of a month of fasting, reflection, and prayer for Ramadan and celebrated this week! (April 21-22, 2023)  Are all Arab Americans Muslim? No, surprisingly in the U.S., only 24% of Arab Americans are Muslim.

How many Arab Americans can you name?  Here are a few: actress Salma Hayek (Lebanese/Mexican); singer Paula Abdul; model Gigi Hadid; Today Show host Hoda Kotb; Christa McAuliffe, the teacher/astronaut who died aboard the space shuttle Challenger; Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal; football star Doug Flutie; Mothers Against Drunk Driving founder Candy Lightner; Hollywood actor and producer Tony Shalhoub; and Jacques Nasser, former president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co.

If you’d like to read more stories from an Arab American or Muslim American perspective, here are a few to consider:

 

The lines we cross by Abdel-Fattah

                Michael’s parents take him to anti-immigration rallies, which he doesn’t think too hard about until a girl named Mina shows up in his classroom. Confident, funny, and razor-smart, Mina challenges the beliefs Michael has grown up with.

 

Internment by Samira Ahmed

                In a frightening near future, Islamophobia reaches a frenzy and Muslim-Americans are rounded up and sent to concentration camps for observation.  Layla, a teen girl, brainstorms ways to gather support outside the camps and leads a revolution.

 

All American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie

                Deep look into the life of a teen girl discovering her faith and recognizing the Islamophobia around her.

 

Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

                Maya is the only Muslim and Indian girl at her school, and while she’d like to go to NYC to study film, her overprotective parents would like her to study medicine closer to home.  After a terrorist attack in their state, following close on the heels of 9-11, Maya’s family is under close scrutiny with many in the community sure they are to blame.

 

Conditional Citizens by Laila Lalami

                Autobiographical account of the journey of Morrocan immigrants as they become US citizens, using the experiences to explore rights, liberties, and protections that highlight the double standards and wrongs in our society.  A Pulitzer Prize finalist.

World Art Day/Week of the Young Child

 

Evansville is celebrating the Week of the Young Child this week and we think it is very fitting that World Art Day also falls on this week! (April 15)  Here are some of our upcoming events for this week:

Music Monday: Movers & Makers (Butterfly craft)

Wednesday: Storytime at 10am, First Chapter Book Club for grades 1-2 at 3:30 pm

Artsy Thursday: Potato Stamping at 10 am

Friday: Baby Storytime at 10 am, Family Fun Night, 5:30-7:30 pm at Levi Leonard Elementary Gym

 

Family Fun Night is a free event organized by AWARE and will have bouncy houses for the kids, arts & crafts, food, and games, with many community organizations participating. 

 

Looking for some artistic inspiration for World Art Day?  Here are a few “how to“ art books from our collection:

 

Children’s Art Books:

                Draw Silly Superheroes, Call #:  J743.4 Colins

                Usborne Art Ideas: Big Book of Things to Draw, Call #: J741.2 Watt

                Usborne Book of Art Ideas, Call #: J745.7 Watt

               

               

Teen Art Books:

                Drawing and Painting Fantasy Worlds, Call #: YA 743.87 Cowan

                Sketching Manga-Style, Call #: YA 741.5952 Hayashi

                Manhwa Mania, Call #: YA 741.5 Hart

               

Adult Art Books:

                Watercolor is for Everyone, Call #: 751.422 Ewing

                Seeing the Light, An Artist’s Guide, Call #: 751.4 Carr

We also wanted to mention Creative Bug, a resource the library subscribes to! From courses on painting to clay, crochet, sewing, candle-making, and jewelry design, it offers step by step videos on all the creative topics you can imagine.  To access, click on CreativeBug under "Online Tools-Classes" from the Eager Free Library's website: https://www.als.lib.wi.us/EFPL/online-tools/  (Requires your library card number to verify you are a library patron.)  Have fun creating!

National Library Week/National Poetry Month

 

It’s National Library Week (April 23-29) during National Poetry Month (April) so we’re hoping for some poetic submissions on our “I love libraries because” hearts.  Pick up a paper heart in the library and show us some love!

We have 3 poetry activities this month if you’d like to be well versed… (it would be poetic justice if National Pun Day were in April, too, but we’re a month early for that one, sadly.) April 1^st was our first poetry share, and we’d love to hear more of the poems you’ve written on Saturday, April 29 at 10 am. We’ll also have a “Pancakes for Poetry” event for teens on Wednesday, April 5 at 3:30 pm at the Teen Advisory meeting.  Read any poem, get a pancake!  We hope to see you soon at the library!

Have You Tried Kanopy Yet?

What in the world is Kanopy?! Kanopy is the best video streaming service for quality, thoughtful entertainment. You can find movies, documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films, and educational videos that inspire, enrich, and entertain. Kanopy partners with public libraries to bring you an ad-free experience that can be enjoyed on your TV, mobile phones, tablets, and online.

Kanopy is Eager Free Public Library's newest online resource. You can access thousands of movies on it for FREE with your library card! There are options for all age groups, so you're sure to find something to watch. Give it a whirl today!

Spring is Just Around the Corner!

Today, March 20, is officially the first day of Spring! When is it going to start feeling like it though?! It seems like we are all just itching for warmer sunnier days. It looks like we might just have to be patient a teeny bit longer. Maybe the Spring-y picture books below will help hold you and your kiddos over until the real thing happens!

When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes: "Animals and children alike watch as the world transforms from the dark and dead of Winter to a full blooming Spring."

Abracadabra, It's Spring! by Anne Sibley O'Brien: "Winter turns to Spring in this lyrical book that celebrates the magic of nature and the changing seasons."

Worm Weather by Jean Taft: "Join in the rainy-day fun as kids splash through the puddles, affecting another weather enthusiast, a nearby worm."

And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano: "Simple text reveals the anticipation of a boy, having planted seeds while everything around is brown, fears that something has gone wrong until, at last, the world turns green."

Wake Up, It's Spring! by Lisa Campbell Ernst: "Word of the arrival of Spring spreads from Earth to worm to seed to ladybug and on through the natural world to a sleeping family, until everyone is dancing in celebration."

A Little Book About Spring by Leo Lionni: "Spring is a time of budding trees, chirping birds, and croaking frogs. Discovers these and more wonders of Spring in this delightful board book."

Author Spotlight: Jojo Moyes

Award winning fiction writer, Jojo Moyes, recently had a new book come out! Someone Else's Shoes is her sixteenth novel. Here's a summary: "Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else's shoes? Nisha Cantor and Same Kemp are two very different women. Nisha, 45, lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband inexplicably cuts her off entirely. She doesn't even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That's because same - 47, middle-aged, struggling to keep herself and her family afloat - has accidentally taken Nisha's gym bag. Now Nisha's got nothing. And Sam's walking tall with shoes that catch eyes - and give her a career an unexpected boost. Except Nisha wants her life back - and she'll start with her shoes..." You can place a hold on Someone Else's Shoes now and read one of her other books listed below while you wait for your turn with the new book!

Some of Jojo's other novels:

Me Before You

After You
Still Me

The Giver of Stars

One Plus One
The Ship of Brides

The Girl You Left Behind

Night Music

The Last Letter From Your Lover

She Believed She Could, So She Did

March is Women's History Month. It's so important for readers of all ages to see females in positive leading roles in books. Yes, princesses and fairies are magical fun, but there are so many other roles that girls and women can play. They can be activists, warriors, super heroes, tech geniuses, and so much more! The Young Adult and Adult Fiction books below all feature strong female protagonists. 

Young Adult:

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven by Bella Forrest

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Gallant by V.E. Schwab

Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys

A Thousand Steps into Night by Traci Chee

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Adult:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Circe by Madeline Miller

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon