A review by librarianryan
The Arabic Quilt: An Immigrant Story by Aya Khalil

hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

 

This is a story about an Egyptian American girl who is going to an American school in the third grade for the first time. She becomes a little embarrassed by both her lunch and her language being something the kids don’t know. With the encouragement of the teacher, she uses her grandmother’s quilt to help show everybody that language is unique, beautiful, amazing, and helps make everybody friendlier. The class, then learns to make all their names in Arabic and the teacher makes a paper quilt to show the rest of the school. The idea is so fantastic that a neighboring classroom does the same thing, but in Japanese script to match a student in that class. This story is lovely. In the US, it is rare for most schools to teach separate languages from early ages. But this book reminds all that language is a beautiful thing and just because it doesn’t sound American doesn’t mean it isn’t, as most American words derive from other languages.