by Steve Pfarrer
SPARKLE BOY
By Lesléa Newman
Illustrated by Maria Mola
Lee & Low Books
www.lesleanewman.com
Casey is a young boy who likes to play with spelling blocks, puzzles, dump trucks and other traditional toys. He also has a penchant for things that glitter and sparkle, like his grandmother’s bracelets — which causes grandmother to dub him “Sparkle Boy.”
But in Lesléa Newman’s new children’s story of that name, Casey’s older sister, Jessie, is pretty irritated by her brother’s interests. When she shows off her painted fingernails, and Jessie says he wants the same look, Jessie says, “Boys don’t wear glittery nail polish.”
Yet Jessie and Casey’s mother, father and grandmother, while noting it’s not typical for boys to be attracted to glittery things, tell Jessie her brother should be free to dress or adorn himself how he wants.
The real test comes when Jessie and Casey go to the local library and Casey wears one of Jessie’s old glittery skirts, prompting two older boys to laugh and tell him he looks weird. Will Jessie stick up for her younger brother this time?
Newman, of Holyoke, has written 70 books for readers of all ages, though she’s particularly known for “Heather Has Two Mommies,” the 1990 children’s book that broke new ground in profiling an unconventional family.
In “Sparkle Boy,” she tells a new tale — somewhat like a version of Alex Gino’s “George” for younger readers — about acceptance, respect and the simple freedom to be yourself.
MIRROR ON THE VEIL: A COLLECTION OF PERSONAL ESSAYS ON HIJAB AND VEILING
Edited by Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi
and Shaheen Pasha
Critical, Cultural and Communications Press
www.jetstonepublishers.com
At times it has been a flashpoint for controversy in the western world, from French schools to supermarket checkout lines in the United States: the hijab, the veil traditionally worn by Muslim women when they’re in the company of men outside their immediate family.
But what exactly does “veiling” mean to women who wear a hijab? Is it a sign or piety or modesty? Can it also be an act of defiance or female empowerment, even an expression of one’s own sensuality, rather than a sign of oppression from a patriarchal society?
In “Mirror on the Veil,” women from around the world who wear a hijab, or have worn one in the past, address those questions and more, in essays that look at their choices and how people have responded to them with and without their head coverings.
Co-editors (and sisters) Shaheen Pasha, who teaches international journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi, a lecturer at the University of Houston, say they’ve also solicited many essays from women who are not professional writers to give voice to people not normally heard outside of media and academic settings.
For some, a hijab becomes a natural part of oneself, not something necessarily significant by itself. Tanya Muneera Williams, a London-based rapper and poet who converted to Islam several years ago, says she feels pride in wearing a hijab, but more importantly, it’s part of her identity as a performer and as a woman.
“The real buzz for me is performing and connecting with the audience,” she writes. “In that moment, race, religion, gender — none of those matter. All that matters is that we are human beings unified through art, and my hijab becomes a part of the music we share.”
Zehra Naqvi, a Pakistani-American attorney, writes her essay in the form of short letters to various unnamed people (“Dear White Guy on the Subway”) that can poke fun at or lament assumptions both she and others make about wearing a hijab.
In the case of the guy on the subway, Naqvi writes that she’s unnerved by the man following her at the same train stop and assumes he’s going to be hostile to her. Instead he says “Assalamu‘ Alaykum” (Peace be upon you).
But in “Dear Parents at the Store,” she’s saddened by a couple who have dragged away their young boy after he was staring at her hijab, saying his curiosity was perfectly natural. “I shot a big smile at him and hope he remembers that, rather than you pulling him away from me like I’m a leper.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.