  “In New York, Grandma reads a story in English. The words go left to right. In Alexandria, Gedetti reads a hadota in Arabic. The words go right to left.” SO much to discover when you have grandparents in two countries, two cities, two cultures! Zamzam is a little boy who visits his grandparents in New York City and Alexandria, Egypt, discovering similarities and differences – and the love of knowing they can all be together under the same moon in Zamzam's dreams. As I write to readers in my brand new picture book, Zamzam, families used to grow up and live their whole lives in the same town. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins – everybody knew each other, celebrated holidays together, cried and laughed together. Then somebody decided to travel to the next town to find a better job. Somebody else flew to a different country to study. And another family felt unsafe in their town and fled to a safer place. Gradually, parents and grandparents lived in different cities and sometimes different countries. Now families include Grandmas and Grandpas who speak another language, cousins who live many hours away and aunties and uncles who cook food you’ve never heard of - but oh, that food can be so good! Maybe you eat food made with special spices everyday or maybe your holiday table is extra special because of one dish everyone looks forward to.  Two generations share a tradition   If you belong to a family with all these different foods and countries and languages, you might celebrate lots of different holidays. My grandsons have family in the United States, Egypt and India. The experiences in my new book really happened to either my son or grandson. We all have stories and experiences to share and sometimes all you have to do is ask and listen. Zamzam is illustrated with rich collages of paper and fabric by Susan L. Roth, who also illustrated our earlier books, Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books and Malala Yousafzai: Warrior with Words. Susan collects papers all over the world and looks for just the right texture color each time she designs a new illustration. Readers may do the same thing, making collage images of themselves or their families. Please order a copy of Zamzam from Bookshop or your favorite independent bookstore. I’ll be at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. for a Meet and Greet on January 26 at 10:30 and send me an email if you’d like me to visit your school at attend an event. And every time you look up at the moon, remember people all over the world who are looking up at the same moon.  Comments are closed.
|