Category Archives: reviews

What’s the Right Age for Al-Salwa’s Book and CD Collection ‘أهازيج الطفولة المبكرة’

Obviously, from the title and the fact that these are board books, the appropriate child for al-Salwa’s أهازيج الطفولة المبكرة series is my middle one: the three-year-old. Continue reading

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30-second Review: عائلة هيكل

عائلة هيكل , created by Janet and Allen Ahlberg and translated by Mahmoud Gaafer, is newly out in Arabic from Bloomsbury Qatar. It’s a “night in the life” story of a skeleton family: a big skeleton, a small one, and their skeleton dog. Continue reading

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It’s Time to Re-Read الوطن

What is الوطن, or a homeland? Continue reading

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Review: سلسلة السمكة الذهبية from دار السلوى and the Daily جدول قراءتي

Most of the leveled “easy readers” that I’ve come across, in Arabic, have been translations of reading series from English or French. This often means that—even with “level one” books—the vocabulary used in the books isn’t so “easy” at all. Continue reading

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فرحانة تتكلم وتتكلم and the Importance of ‘Dialogic Reading’

Recently, the Huffington Post published an essay by Maxwell King and Michael Robb, Ph.D about one of the important ways we can help our children learn.

Talking. Continue reading

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Doha Book Fair Finds: The قصة و كوسى Series

How on Earth—you might legitimately ask—did it take me so long to pick up the قصة و كوسى series, which has been out now for several years, since the birth of my first son? Continue reading

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When Your Toddler Gets Scared: لا أخاف

Suddenly, my two-and-a-half-year-old wants to skip past all the “scary” pages in his books. Continue reading

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Why We Need More Coverage of Arabic Children’s Books in Newspapers

But what interests me most (today) is how much coverage of children’s literature one finds in the New York Times, one of the United States’ leading papers. This coverage is not just repetition of some author or bookstore or publisher press release (ahem!), but provides serious and in-depth views and reviews of children’s lit. Continue reading

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15-Second Review: لو كنت طائرا

Rarely does a book engender as many difficult questions as لو كنت طائرا, written by Fatima Sharafeddine and illustrated by Amal Karzai. Continue reading

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30-Second Review: Book and Interactive CD for the Award-Winning بيت للأرنب الصغير

بيت للأرنب الصغير, one of only two books that was longlisted both for the Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children’s Literature and on the Anna Lindh Foundation Honor List, is not just a book: It’s a book with an interactive CD that features games, art projects, songs, a dramatic reading of the book, print-outs, “wallpaper,” and probably more functions we haven’t yet explored! Continue reading

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