The Proudest Blue Ibtihaj Muhammad, S.K. Ali, Hatem Aly

 

2020

emergent readers, Key Stage 1,  pre-school, picture book, ages 4-6, Muhammad Ibtihaj, Ali  S KL, Aly Hatem,  bullying, prejudice, otherness

Asiya, her sister and mother go to the shop to buy Asiya her first grown-up hijab. Previously she has only worn one for special occasions and then gradually at school if she has no sports lessons. Now she must start wearing one all the time.  Her mother wants her to have a pink one but she chooses a vibrant blue one.     

The story is told form the point of view of her younger sister who is very proud of her sibling in her new hijab. Unusually the story for this reader the story is told in a first person narrative. Asiya’s younger sister makes the comparison between the hijab and themselves; the blue is how the ocean meets the sky and in the same way that there is no line between her and her sister. One day others will understand the hijab. There is some bullying and lack of understanding but the two girls stay strong.  

The text is not too dense. It is printed in an adult but large font.  There is information about the writers and the illustrators at the back and also a note from Ibithaj Muhammad, an Olympic fencer. Muhmmad describes her experience of wearing a hijab and what it means to her.   

 

Wolves by Emily Gravett

                                                      

2016, first published 2002  

Rabbit goes to the library to choose a book about wolves. With Rabbit we learn where wolves live, what they look like, which parasites they have to endure, all about their teeth and what they eat.  There is a story too.  Fortunately for rabbit, the wolf he actually encounters is a vegetarian.

The illustrations are amusing and add a little to the story.

There are some novelty interactive elements.  There is an old-fashioned library card at the beginning of the book. There is a letter that the child can take out of an envelope.  The double spread where this is situated is covered in realistic pictures of letters and a receipt from the Burrowed Wok that provides Carrotenese takeaways.

There is even another story at the end of the book.  The chid is invited to make a booklet that tells the story of the ten little rabbits.  This story is more suitable for the emergent reader.      

It has sixteen double spreads.  The paper in this edition is matt. The book is almost square and tending towards portrait suggesting that there may be an expectation that the child would read it alone.  

 

The Bird Within Me

2020

The story is inspired by paintings, letters and diaries of the Swedish painter Berta Hansson.

There is a lot of sadness in the text: Berta is labelled as useless, she is dissatisfied with her art, especially as it does not prevent her mother, who suffers from TB,  eventually dying. Berta and her siblings have to constantly be tested for the disease and after Mother’s death the house has to be thoroughly cleaned.

We have clues that the story is set in the past: the hold the TB has, the visit of the mother to the sanatorium, we see older sister Julia putting on stockings and we see some delightful extracts from the fashion pages of an old newspaper. Father’s attitude is a little old-fashioned; Why should a girl go away to be educated?

Yet Berta manages with the doctor’s help to go away to study art.

The illustrations represent the type of work Berta would have been doing at the age she is in the story.

Who will read this text? It is rather long for a picture book and has rather more text that we would expect in a story for pre-school children. Indeed the content is more suitable for an older child or even a young adult or adult. Yet the pictures, the story and the text work together to give us an authentic picture of Berta’s life.  It is a text that the reader can return to time and time again.    

This is a highly illustrated with full colour pictures. The pictures add to the story. There are sixty-five double spreads including end-matter which add up to the 228 pages of core text.  

At the end of the book is a twelve page biography of Berta. 

   

Noddy and His Car by Enid Blyton

2016, first published 1949

Enid Blyton remains a puzzle. Her books for all age groups continue to sell and yet she is questioned  by many educationalists.  In the 1950s she was criticised for her poor writing and more recently her lack of political correctness has become an issue.  So, she is popular but her works can hardly be described as classics. 

The Noddy books have indeed been sanitised. The wicked gollywogs have been replaced by trolls. We still have the problem of Big-Ears who has acquired his name because of a faulty body part yet he remains a good mentor to Noddy. 

Alas, the females are fluffy and shown as dependent on males. The males are authoritative and over-bearing.  Perhaps, though, this is just reminiscent of the time in which Blyton worked and lived.

Yet the story still appeals. It is a satisfying well-structure story with an upbeat ending and the illustrations tell more of the story, illustrate and amuse. 

It's a bit of a puzzle. It is word-rich and employs a serif font with difficult 'a's and 'g's, implying that the adult might read to the child. However, the use of ragged right and the nature of the pictures suggest that this book might also be suitable for emergent readers.