 Hi everyone, my name is Steph, this is Little Bookish Teacher. Today I'm going to share some picture books by Palestinian authors. Obviously there is a lot going on at the moment in Gaza and I'll leave some information down below where you can find links to learn more and find out how you can help what is going on. But I've always been a firm believer in that books, particularly picture books, help us and especially young children with connecting with cultures that are not our own, but also in allowing us to see ourselves represented on page. Now I'm not Palestinian, so for me I look at these books and go this is this helps me to connect with a culture that I'm not personally a part of. But we need these books to be available so that children can see themselves in texts and see their families culture and traditions represented. So to that end I have not as many books as I would like and I will be very clear on that. I wish that I had more and I am continuing to do research into finding more and getting access to some of them because some of them are just simply currently not available or not within my price range at the moment and that's okay but they are definitely on my radar and stay tuned you'll hear about some more in the future. And I should say I do have one non-picture book in this list but that's because I want to mention a Palestinian Egyptian Australian author who does some incredible work. So there is Rand Abdel Fatah who wrote 11 Words for Love which is a gorgeous look at 11 ways of expressing love in Arabic and it is just a stunning, stunning book. When I first saw it I just fell in love with it. I absolutely adored it and I wish that I could find my physical copy of it. I think it's at work but it's proving hard to track down at the moment. But another one that she has written is The Very Best Donut and this is part of the Our Stories series which looks at funny and diverse stories and Rand Abdel Fatah who is the series editor of this series has said that this series is about stories to help kids accept each other and themselves and in this one we have a young boy whose family is celebrating Ramadan and it is his first time trying to participate fully in Ramadan and he's not as successful as he would like and so he gets quite down about that but it's about how his family helps show him that you know his effort is valued and that it's okay that he didn't succeed the first time just having a go is part of their family culture and that they celebrate together and they support each other and it was just a gorgeous little first chapter book. The print in here is quite large, it's very accessible. There's currently four books in this series but I just wanted to highlight this one by Rand Abdel Fatah. She is a fantastic writer and I know I will be keeping an eye out and trying to look at any other work that she has out there. Then there is a gorgeous book called These Olive Trees by Aya Ghanimet and if I apologize profusely if I've mispronounced anything in this video. This is a historical picture book set in 1967 Palestine and there is a young girl who lives with her family in a refugee camp and one of her favorite things to do with her family is to collect olives from the trees just outside of the camp and make olive oil with them. When war comes again to the camp where to the camp where her family are she has to flee with them and she has to leave behind these trees which is a huge part of her of her family traditions and her culture and something that she's deeply connected to and so she makes a commitment to never forget and to leave her family's legacy behind. So while this book does have the bitterness of war and having to leave behind things that you care about there is also a hope and a belief in a free and thriving future. There is the connection with family and with land and it was a really beautiful story. It's gorgeously illustrated. It's well worth checking out. This is one I definitely need to get my hands on a physical copy of when I can. And then there is Zit and Zatar which is a really gorgeous fun story about an American Palestinian family. So the children come home from school one day and there's no snacks that they can find and so together the children and their mother set out to make a traditional Palestinian snack Zit and Zatar which is a flatbread dipped in olive oil and a Zatar herb mix which I love. I have this every now and then as well and it was just nice to read this. It's told in a very song-like fashion the family sing together as they're putting together all of the ingredients. There's a little bit of history woven into it as in the background of where the food comes from and it's just bright and bold and gorgeous and just a really wonderful celebration of how food brings people together. I also read Homeland My Father Dreams of Palestine by Hannah Melschebak and this one is about a family who listen to their father's stories of growing up in Palestine and his stories are some of their favorite to listen to but they also understand that those memories are laced with sadness for him because he and his family were forced out of their homes and they've never been able to return and so while they love those stories they know that there is that other connotation to them and it's about hope and family and coming together. This book is absolutely gorgeous. In terms of its design style it's been very deliberate. The end papers reflect that because the end papers at the start of the book are all these black and white photos of the father's family back in Palestine growing up. They're in black and white, they look like they've been aged and then when you flip to the back of the book you have these beautiful bright vibrant photos of the family members and the fact that their family members are spread around the world so they were forced to flee their home and they've been separated but at the core they're still one family and they're still connected and they may have grown up in other places and adopted other practices or cultures along the way but they're still Palestinian and it was a really really gorgeous, gorgeous story and there's a lovely author's note at the back of the book talking more about how the story came about and how it was written and the connection to the family so this is a really lovely one as well. And then finally the newest addition to my collection is We Are Palestinian a Celebration of Culture and Tradition. This is by Reem Casas and illustrated by Noha Eluti which I again I apologize if I've mispronounced anything. This one is actually a non-fiction text. It is a hardback, it's beautiful and it's exactly what it says. At the very front of the book you have your contents page so we are looking at geography, cultural symbols, creative minds, agriculture, cuisine, performing arts, history and religion and it is just so beautifully put together. It is an information text probably for slightly older readers or slightly older children but it's definitely one that you could unpack with younger children if you read it together and being quite a big book you wouldn't necessarily dive into the whole thing. You would read parts of it. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book at the moment. I haven't finished it but I have loved reading and learning more about the Palestinian culture and traditions that I didn't know and it's been a really great way for me to celebrate such a rich culture which of course puts into perspective how terrible and how sad and how heartbreaking everything that's going on currently is. This is a way of informing myself and learning more about a place in a culture that I didn't know that much about. So I will be continuing to find more books, continuing to learn more, to understand the culture and traditions more but this is a starting point and hopefully that helps people if you are looking for a starting point as well. In the comments if you have recommendations for children's books by Palestinian authors feel free to let me know down below. I'm always always always on the lookout for more. If you would like to let me know that you're here but you don't only have a comment for free to leave either a Palestinian flag or a watermelon, email you down below. Otherwise I hope that we're on the world just staying safe and healthy and I will see you in my next video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye everyone.