What Shall We Play Now?

by Taghreed A Najjar (Author) Charlotte Shama (Illustrator)

What Shall We Play Now?
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

A fun picture book about the power of imagination from an award-winning female author and pioneer of children's literature in the Arab world.

Just imagine all the things you can do with a green piece of cloth. Will you turn it into the sail of a pirate ship or into a small tent? Just imagine. Will you turn it into a beautiful butterfly that will fly from one flower to another or into a super heroine that will protect everybody from evil? Just imagine... Raya and Samar just imagine and have great fun playing with a green piece of cloth.

This delightful picture book from the Middle East celebrates the imagination and creativity of children.

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Hardcover
$18.95

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Publishers Weekly

Cape, butterfly wings, hula skirt, tent—a piece of cloth "soft as silk, green as grass, and cool as a breeze" fuels a day of imaginative play for two children in this lively picture book, first published in Arabic. "With a flick and a click, in just a blink, with no magic stick," pretend begins immediately after the child's seamstress mother passes on the textile. While at first the child, portrayed with tan skin, relishes solo play as a cloaked superhero and a "brave Bedouin woman," the adventures amplify with the arrival of friend Raya, a pale-skinned child whose skepticism about the fabric's capacity for fun is easily overcome when it transforms her into a princess, then a maharaja ruling "the lands that lay between the mountains of India and the plains of Pakistan," among others. Najjar's global storytelling can feel generalizing when detailing the sheet's cultural versatility, but Shama's narrative illustrations expressively capture the way the item helps the children to envision entire worlds.

Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes



Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781623718091
Lexile Measure
-
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Crocodile Books
Publication date
October 04, 2022
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV051000 - Juvenile Fiction | Imagination & Play
JUV048000 - Juvenile Fiction | Clothing & Dress
JUV074000 - Juvenile Fiction | Diversity & Multicultural
Library of Congress categories
-

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