[ Search for Articles ] [ Visit Our Interviews Page ]

A Close-Up with Writers
Rukhsana Khan and Naomi Shihab Nye:
Voices to Bridge the Gap
by Barbara J. Odanaka

In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, children's booksellers and librarians across the United States searched their bookshelves and asked:

Where are all the children's books on Islam?

Where are the books on Arab cultures?

Where are the books on Afghanistan?

Truth is, there aren't many. But two writers—Rukhsana Khan of Toronto, Canada, and Naomi Shihab Nye of San Antonio, Texas—are here to help bridge the gap.

Khan, who immigrated to Canada from Lahore, Pakistan, when she was three, is the author of "The Roses in My Carpets," a picture book that has received increased attention in the last few months. Illustrated by Ronald Himler, the book describes an Afghani refugee boy who finds beauty and hope in the carpets he weaves. "Roses," published by Stoddart Kids in Canada and Holiday House in the US, offers children in more privileged situations a glimpse into a world they might find inconceivable.

An excerpt:

Blessed darkness. A moment passes before I realize I am in our mud house in the refugee camp. Safe. I hear the quiet breathing of my mother and sister nearby.

A cock crows, and then the eerie cry of the muezzin calls me to prayer. Dawn. I might as well rise and fetch the water before there is a lineup at the well.

Khan, of Toronto, is the author of three other books including "Muslim Child," a collection of short stories and nonfiction sidebars, and "Dahling If You Luv Me Would You Please, Please Smile?" a young adult novel. This despite the fact that when Kahn's eighth-grade teacher encouraged her to be a writer, Khan thought it impossible.

"I thought, quite honestly, that all writers were white and from Britain and America, because that's where all the books I read were from," says Khan (website: www.rukhsanakhan.com).

Naomi Shihab Nye is known to many in the writing world. Daughter of a Palestinian father and an American mother, Nye moved with her family to Jerusalem for a year when she was 14. Her novel "Habibi" is partly based on that experience.

Nye, author of more than 25 books ranging from poetry collections to novels, was visiting a Tulsa, Oklahoma high school when she first heard of the Sept. 11 attacks. She responded with "A Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye to Any Would-Be Terrorists," a powerful plea for peace that was widely circulated on the Internet.

"Kindness," a poem from Nye's "Words Under the Words" collection, was also passed to thousands, via e-mail. Greenwillow will publish a collection of Nye's poems related to the Middle East next spring. It's title: "19 Varieties of Gazelle."

We close with an excerpt from "Blood," a poem that Nye says has been read quite a bit lately in middle and high schools. "I'm not sure it helps anybody," Nye says of the poem, "but at least it could let children know how Arab-Americans are feeling with this giant shadow cast across our culture and heritage. We will have to work twice as hard now to convey the beauty about the world we love."

I call my father, we talk around the news.

It is too much for him,

Neither of his two languages can reach it.

I drive to the country to find sheep, cows,

To plead with the air:

Who calls anyone civilized?

Where can the crying heart graze?

What does a true Arab do now?

Barbara J. Odanaka covers the children’s book industry for Authorlink.com. She can be reached through www.skateboardmom.com, a website focusing on the children’s book industry. For more on this and other interviews, visit skateboardmom.com.