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Reviewed by: Emily McFarlane, Elementary School Librarian Title: Hana's Hundreds of Hijabs Author: Razeena Omar Gutta Illustrator: Manal Mirza
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Year: 2022 Good for Grades: PK-3 Genre/Type of Book: Realistic Fiction/Picture Book
Content Warnings, or things that other School Librarians should be aware of: Nothing at all!
Recommended for a school library: Yes Reason(s) for choosing the book: I was looking for books that represented our students who wear hijab!
If you were tasked by the publisher with writing a short quote for the back cover of this book, what would it be:
When Hana's love of hijab starts causing problems, what's a fashionista to do? |
Review:
Hana has a talent for styling hijab. Her drawers and shelves and closets are overflowing with scarves and jewels and accessories that she finds all over. Her hijabs are taking over the house and making her late for everything though! And the clutter is beginning to be more than she can manage. Will Hana find a way to manage her love of styling hijab and her love of collecting it?
This is a cute and quick picture book. The art is colorful and stylized, flowing and cheerful. The color palette is cohesive though, so the eye doesn't get confused or overwhelmed. Hana is able to solve her problem by creating a hijab styling business, which allows her to share her love of hijab and styling with her community, and help declutter her collection. However, there isn't much lead-up to this revelation or what one might call a true plot. It would be a great book for a problem and solution unit, where you can present the problem to students and ask them to help come up with different solutions, then present what happened. You could also use it to illustrate cause and effect quite well. (Hana spent too long styling her hijab. What was the effect? etc.) I would have loved to see it play out as more of a story- dialogue and her trying many solutions before coming to the right answer, but it still has enough of a story to be a nice read.
I love all of the different styles Hana wears in the story, and her outfits are wild and fun. She is a character who isn't afraid to be herself, and that really shines through. It might encourage students to be fearlessly themselves as well, which I would love to encourage. It also helps to represent characters who wear hijab, like "The Proudest Blue," which is another great diverse book.
Number of party hats:
Find resources for Hana's Hundreds of Hijabs at Teachingbooks.net
For more information about this book, see the Publisher's Website
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