From a google alert I follow a link to a blog written by Malaysian student Akmal Azeman and her post Muslims In Another Word which features questions about wearing hijab asked of an Australian high school student by her fellow students.
I then google on the name of the author of the book Akmal quoted the questions from: that author is Randa Abdel-Fattah, and I find that she is the winner of this year’s Kathleen Mitchell Award for writers under 30, plus various interviews with her, including one at an entirely new-to-me Oz book reviewing website, managed by the State Library of Victoria:
is a website for young people about books. Here you can:
* read and write reviews
* meet our online author-in-residence
* win stuff
* preview upcoming titles
* read interviews with authors
* keep up to date with all the latest bookish news
* listen to podcasts and audio Chapter Ones
* talk about books on the forum
It looks like an extremely well designed website with a really good program for keeping kids interested in books. Check it out.
I also found another site, The Blurb, with reviews of books and entertainment, which reviewed Abdel-Fatteh’s Does My Head Look Big in This?
Abdel-Fatteh is also a founding member of an interfaith Palestinian/Jewish women’s friendship group, an activist for Palestinian human rights, a lawyer and an occasional op-ed columnist.
My daughter goes to school with quite a few girls who wear the hijab. Abdel-Fattah’s books look like a good start to having some basic questions about the choice to wear hijab answered without having to be yet another Anglo quizzing her schoolmates.
