I always find them so daunting. Meeting people I admire so much…tends to make you feel kind of inadequate.

But I went, because I’ve always found that I never regret it afterwards–even though I had a ton of preparations to do for tomorrow night’s trip to Malaysia and Singapore, not to mention I was quite tired because I’d done three presentations today and have two more tomorrow morning at the same school!

So I came into the publisher offices, smiled obsequiously, and grabbed a glass of perrier with a sprig of mint in it. I saw a familiar face–but being so bad with faces and names I’m not precisely sure which of my friends introduced me, but I started talking to this very tall, lithe, silver-haired gentleman. He put out his hand to shake mine and I had to tell him that I couldn’t, I’m not allowed to shake men’s hands, and he was ever so nice about it.

The music was loud. I didn’t hear his name, but somehow when I was being introduced to him he knew who I was. He asked if I’d written that lollipop book that had been on the New York Times ten best list, and I brightened and said, yes! That’s me.

So we were talking on, the music made it hard to hear, and I felt silly cocking my ear and leaning in so I could hear him properly, but I asked him what he’d worked on and he started rattling off some pretty impressive projects, including working on the Gordon Lightfoot book project. It still didn’t click who I was talking to!

I told him that I’d heard that Gordon Lightfoot was working so hard because he felt he was on borrowed time. I’m a big fan of Gordon Lightfoot! My favourite song of his is probably the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald!  It’s a haunting song and I happened to stay at a motel ages ago, in Tobermory, with my hubby, which wasn’t far from the actual wreck site!

It left an imprint on me.

Anyway, then the gentleman went on to say he’d also done the illustrations for The Name of the Tree, and suddenly my jaw dropped!

“You’re Ian Wallace!” I said.

He smiled. “Yes.”

I said, “I’m talking to Ian Wallace! I’m really talking to Ian Wallace! I LOVE your work!”

That is the book The Name of the Tree!

It’s one of the finest examples of a retold folktale you can ever find, but what really makes this book astonishing is the way Ian Wallace’s art COMPLIMENTS the tone of the story so PERFECTLY!

It’s such a coincidence! I’d just been thinking that I needed to buy more copies! I’d given away the half dozen that I’d purchased.

This might sound like an out of proportion type of reaction, but I guess we all have people we look up to. I’d never met Ian Wallace before.

And I’d ALWAYS ALWAYS admired his work!

I asked him how he’d decided to use such a stipple effect on his illustrations of Name of the Tree and even though I’m no artist, I listened as he explained. Fascinating!

Pretty soon another illuminary joined us: Marie Louise Gay. She’s written the Stella and Sam  books. I first read her book Fat Charlie’s Circus  and immediately fell in love with her style!

She’s one of those rare people who can do BOTH the art and the story!

So I’m standing there and after I’d picked my jaw up off the floor, I actually was able to carry on a conversation with both these fine people, without feeling like a complete idiot.

Wow!

I’ve come a long way baby! *g*

I even felt like I held my own in the conversation.

Later I caught up with some other old friends of mine! And I met a new acquaintance Laurel Croza.

In total I probably had about four interesting conversations within the space of two hours!

Not bad!

And then on the way down in the elevator, this lady said it was such a nice party! She said that normally she aimed for two really good conversations. She said that if she had two good conversations she felt good about attending! With this party she’d come away with five!

I thought, well, I’d come away with four good conversations, definitely worth my time!

I’m still starry eyed!

Ian Wallace!

Wow!

From everything I’d heard of him, I suspected he was a curmudgeonly sort, but it was only absolutely confirmed when I saw the interview between him and Stephen Colbert.

It’s actually very funny. He swears like a sailor and says stuff about hating adults and not being able to stand children.

But the biggest shock, kind of, but not really, was that his favourite books of his were…get this!…Higglety Pigglety Pop and one of the other lesser known books.

Higglety Pigglety Pop for goodness sakes!!!

The book he wrote as an ode to his dog!

The only reason I even know this book at all is because it was on a reading list for this Children’s Literature conference I was attending that was being held at Harvard University in the summer of 1996!

I had the devil of a time tracking down the book! It was long out of print, but through the wonders of interlibrary loan I finally found it, and yes, I made myself read it, sure I’d find flashes of the brilliance of Where the Wild Things Are, but NOPE, all I found was an INCREDIBLY stupid story about a dog who runs around and eats things, performs in a play and is a general nincompoop before it dies!

Apparently, according to Sendak, that was the ‘point’.

So I guess I did get the ‘message’ of the book.

Geez!

But boy do I wish I could have the half an hour it must have taken to read that stupid book, back in my life!

And I suspect that it was my reaction to his book that got me into a considerable amount of trouble at that children’s literature conference.

The who’s who of the industry was there.

And during the core lecture when we were finally to discuss the list of books that included the dreadful Higglety Pigglety Pop , where I figured I would finally find out why such a STUPID book had been included on an otherwise wonderful list, the lecturer got up instead and extolled the virtues of the story!

The incredibly ‘imaginative’ play and blah blah blah.

I couldn’t believe it!

I thought, I couldn’t be that off in my opinion.

And when the lecture was over and they started taking questions, I couldn’t believe that everyone was dwelling on a book that had been wonderful, Letters from the Inside by Australian writer John Marsden, wondering what had really happened in it, instead of trashing Higglety Pigglety Pop!!!

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stuck up my hand, and when they called on me, I said, “I had no problem with Letters from the Inside but I had a BIG problem with Higglety Pigglety Pop!”

It was like a dam of laughter broke and the audience was awash in chuckles! And oh the look on that lecturers face! The rest of the audience obviously agreed with me but had been too polite to say so.

I ended up my diatribe against the book with the statement, “Maybe it’s my lack of a European upbringing. I just didn’t get it. Some books just DESERVE to go out of print!”

It may not have been a politically expedient thing to publicly cry out that the ‘emperor was wearing no clothes’ if you know what I mean, but to this day I don’t regret what I said!

Sure it probably got me negative attention from the powers that be in children’s literature–there’s a surprising amount of POLITICS in the world of children’s books! And they take themselves Oh so SERIOUSLY!!! (someone has to I guess…)

But in the end who the heck cares?

These are ADULTS  that forget that they are foisting their tastes on children! As far as I’m concerned, they don’t really matter. (Actually they do, unfortunately you have to get past the adults to get to the children readers–but really–I’d rather impress the children!)

And ultimately it’s so WEIRD for Maurice Sendak to sayHigglety Pigglety Pop was his most brilliant book???!!! Wow!

Got me thinking of whether I do the same.

It’s funny but I don’t really pay much attention to my bestselling book which is probably Big Red Lollipop.

It coasts along on its own steam I guess.

And instead I tend to talk about the other books, because somehow they feel overlooked a bit.

I wonder if that’s what Sendak did.

I don’t know. Wish I could have asked him, but come to think of it, I suspect he might have sworn at me. *g*

Oh who knows?!

But it does somehow make me think less of him.

So he wrote this classic and a whole lot of duds! And for whatever reason, he prefers the duds!

I sure don’t want to do that.

I want each and every book of mine to stand tall, on its own merit.

We’ll see though.

It’s still early yet in my career.

He died at 83 and that’s still 33 years away.

Whenever I think of them, and it’s often, I do so with a smile on my face.

The first has the same last name as myself, but as far as I know she’s no relation. Her name is Sheema Khan.

She is a Harvard graduate–who wouldn’t be impressed with that! But it’s the deftness with which she fields Islamic issues in the media that just impresses the heck out of me!

Always patient, always intelligent, and oh so cool!

Oh and one time, she was on some TV Ontario show that had a HUGE panel and was being chaired by Steve Paikin! And somewhere at the end of the panel was Irshad Manji.

Irshad Manji has the uncanny ability to blurt out quick soundbytes. Many people call her “Rushdie light” because she doesn’t have the scholarly background and depth to her insults that Rushdie has.

The one thing that Manji is most adept at is getting under the skin of practicing Muslims.

I saw her briefly on a show with the most calm and mild-mannered Muslim scholar I’ve ever known–Jamal Badawi. I grew up listening to Jamal Badawi’s erudite explanations of Islamic history! He’s so wise!

Poor brother Jamal! Manji had him frazzled out of his mind!

I know the feeling!!!

Geez, I was on a show with her, it was Richler Ink’s Book TV and she kept interrupting me so much that I told her at one point, “You’re being very rude!”

She was, but I must confess, I looked like a school-marmish idiot for pointing it out that way. Definitely NOT one of my finer moments! LOL.

But anyway, Sheema was on this panel with many others and Manji kept coming after her with barbs and quips in a desperate sort of grasp for attention. It was really WEIRD! And you know what Sheema did? At one point, she just looked sideways at stupid old Irshad Manji and she smiled!

She just SMILED!

In such a lovely dismissive way!

Oh, just watching it made me LAUGH! And just remembering back to it makes me LAUGH OUT LOUD!

Who got the better of whom???

And ever since then I’ve been a huge fan of Sheema’s!

She’s been writing a column for Canada’s largest National paper The Globe & Mail for quite some time, and I never miss her writings.

And the way she navigates the comments–which can often be nasty, racist and just plain mean-spirited, makes me just sigh in admiration!

I wish I could be that calm and collected when dealing with ignorant people!

I’ve never met Sheema! I’ve always wanted to!

But I’m sure I’d be reduced to a quivering pile of nerves if I did meet her. And I wouldn’t know what to say! I’d just kind of mutter, “Umha ahum ha, You’re Sheema Khan!” Like she doesn’t already know that!

The other lady I admire so much, is a lady whose face I’ve never seen–she wears niqab–but who’s hugged me with such warmth that I swear sisterly love flowed right through the fabric of her face veil!

Her name is Na’ima bint Robert. I first became acquainted with her work when I read her sweetly simple The Swirling Hijaab. All about a little girl who plays with her mother’s hijaab.

Thing about Na’ima though, is that she wasn’t born into a Muslim family. 

And growing up, Na’ima comes from a very unique mix! Her father comes from Scottish highlanders and her mother was a Zulu!

She used to be a party girl!

How she became Muslim is a fascinating story best read in her own words here: http://naimabrobert.co.uk/press/a-converts-veiled-story-the-globe-and-mail/

Ha, ha! And the fact that Maggie Wente–one of the most controversial, and opinionated columnists in the Globe should say such nice things about her, really surprises me! I wonder if Na’ima knows what a coup that interview was!

But what made me admire Na’ima the most was one answer she gave in an interview that challenged her convictions by asking her about issues of Islamic sharia and how she was able to jive it with her western upbringing. In this article she talks about her views:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3641016/That-Muslim-woman-could-be-happier-than-you….html

I read the piece while holding my breath–how, oh how, would she answer such a provocative question without looking completely ridiculous!

With remarkable grace, she pulled it off. She said the exact thing I’ve felt in my heart, but hadn’t the gift of articulation to say.

I particularly loved this bit:

“Na’ima concedes that reverting to Islam has not always been easy. She is an educated women from a liberal background; when I ask about her views on matters such as abortion and homosexuality she says that “my views on every issue are guided by what Islam says. Some issues are hard, because I wasn’t raised that way. Sometimes I see the wisdom, sometimes I don’t understand everything to the very core. But I submit to Allah. If He says that these things are obligatory then I submit to them.

“There are certain things that maybe you can’t see a benefit to, but it doesn’t mean that there’s no benefit to them. As Muslims we believe that Allah knows us better than we know ourselves. The way I see it, it’s like when you go to the doctor with an ailment and he gives you a foul-tasting medicine. I don’t know how it will make me better and I’d like to make it taste nicer but that is not my place. The doctor knows why it is like that and I trust in him.”

Sums it up perfectly!!!

For years Na’ima has run the incredibly internationally successful magazine Sisters.

It is stunning!

And every bit as glossy and right up there in terms of quality with the best of all other women’s magazines!

I haven’t read her memoir From My Sister’s Lips but I have read her book that won the Muslim Writer’s Award. That was the award we were both short-listed for, the ceremony that was held in the Shakespeare Globe Theatre.

When Na’ima won, I’m happy to say I was the first person to hug her!

I am so happy for her!

She won for her book Far From Home that is about the appropriation of African land by white settlers in Zimbabwe.

It’s a book that really brings alive the history of Zimbabwe. I learned a lot! And there are parts of the book that are quite moving. I do wish she hadn’t skimmed over the armed resistance movement that her female protagonist joins. There’s a huge gap in the narrative, where there could have been SO much dramatic tension!

And honestly the story of the white girl, didn’t move me at all. It sounded a bit like kvetching.

But the book is definitely worth reading!!!

I was fortunate enough to receive a number of her other books too!

Her picture book Going to Mecca moved me to tears. It’s about a family who goes for Hajj. And Ramadan Moon is LOVELY too!

Her other fiction was less successful for me. There was too much of a didactic quality to her novel Boy vs Girl for me to find it appealing.

I added it to my Muslim booklist though because there is such a dearth of Muslim fiction that as long as the book doesn’t have any inaccuracies–and of course it doesn’t!–then I usually add it to my booklist knowing that many people would enjoy it.

I do think many Muslim youth would find much to identify with her novels Boy vs Girl  and From Somalia with Love.

I think Na’ima is only just starting on her prolific career as an author!

This is meant as loving encouragement and a call for her to raise the bar higher! I know she can do it! Masha Allah, she’s brilliant!

The days when you can have a kindly aunt hanging around in the background to help gently guide the youth of the novel towards a better course of action is gone.

It’s best to let all matters be resolved by the teen characters themselves.

Over and out.

But really, what do you say to a teacher who tells you that they prepared for your visit by watching Disney’s Alladin???

Alladin!!!

Whose opening song, Arabian Nights, originally contained the verse:

Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where they cut off your ear
If they don’t like your face
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home

And you know what’s weird?

They released it with those lyrics, and then when Arab Americans complained, they pulled out the alternative verse THEY’D ALREADY PREPARED!!!

This is the alternative verse by the way:

Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where it’s flat and immense
And the heat is intense
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home

Funny how they still couldn’t get away from the ‘barbaric’ word. I really don’t think it’s any improvement.

Disney knew they’d get flack for the original lyrics, they knew they was racist, but they wanted to see just what they could get away with.

So a few days ago I went to a school and really what do you say to a teacher who gets the kids to watch that garbage to prepare the students for Persian and Arabian Folktales?

Nothing.

You don’t say anything, because you know that they mean well.

But for the record, a lot of people don’t realize just how RACIST Disney really is towards Arabs and Muslims!

And not just Disney, really many of the Hollywood establishment.

Arnold Schwarzneggar in True Lies.

And of course all the Steven Spielberg racist stuff in the Indiana Jones movies. A Jewish director, being racist towards Arabs in the first Indiana Jones movie and then Indians in the second one. And yet if Muslims say anything about Jews we’re called anti-Semetic!

And don’t get me started on Adam Sandler! Like that scene in Click with the Arab guy who wants him to design some plaza or something.

Will Muslim literature EVER be mainstream?

Is this a pipe dream?

I did my Dajan Tigh folktale and my folktale about the Clever Wife, both Muslim romantic stories, and one of the kids asks why I did romantic stories? So I blurted out because I like them and because people think that Muslims don’t have romantic stories!

So I did my presentations and I had a wonderful time as usual, but somehow, coming home, I felt really depressed.

There was no reason for me to feel depressed. It had been a good day.

But I don’t know, sometimes it feels like the work to change minds is like a HUGE mountain that’s impossible to climb.

I mean these are the NICE teachers I’m dealing with! That teacher was absolutely nice and well intentioned! That’s exactly why it’s so depressing!

These are the teachers who are TRYING!

sigh.

You wanna know the other funny thing?

On the way there I had some pretty interesting encounters.

I had bought some brilliant violet and royal blue material a little while ago and I got two salwar kameez suits made of it.

I LOVE violet! That really beautiful deep blue purple!!!

I’ve been WAITING for it to come back in style! And finally I found some, so I bought the suit, like I said, and I got it tailored.

Then I went to the Hijab Fashion store to get a matching hijab.

I think the lady who owns the shop is a real gem! An honest businesswoman!

One of the few Muslim businesses where they absolutely don’t sell bootlegged dvd’s and cassettes and books! So I always try to give her business.

Plus, her service is the best! I told her I was trying to match this beautiful violet suit and she dug into a hijab stand, at the back and pulled out the PERFECT match!

Oh it was gorgeous!

And I’d bought this purple rhinestone brooch from Italy that I’d never worn because I had nothing that matched it, and Lo and behold, this whole thing matched!

I must say that I looked very nice, masha Allah!

Well!

The reaction from people at the service station when I went to gas up! The clerk, a white guy, who would NEVER chat me up that much, actually has an exchange with me! Oh not flirtatious!!! Of course not! Just platonic friendly!

And also this other white guy, an older gentleman, says hi, when I’m cleaning my windshield with the squeegee.

I thought maybe it’s something in me that’s eliciting this response. Maybe because I’m happy with the clothes it’s projecting something. 

And yet later, when I stopped into this restaurant to ask directions–a diner really–looked like it was out of the sixties! Full of white people, the mood  was definitely NOT friendly!

It had those little round stools at the counter, and a menu written on a white board in marker with ingredients with a LOT of bacon and ham.

The head waitress gave me such a look when I came in, standing there, frozen for a second, with her pot of coffee in her hand.

Sure brought me down to earth.

And yup, it’s depressing. Because something tells me those folks in the restaurant are the majority.

At least they didn’t refuse to serve me, so thank goodness for some progress.

Apparently the kids at one of the schools had been so intrigued by my Roses in My Carpets  presentation that they’d entirely skipped recess to gather around me!

They SKIPPED their RECESS!!!!

The fifteen minutes they get to do pretty much whatever they want!

And today, I had the joy of going to a school where many of the kids had actually read Wanting Mor!

Even before I started my Wanting Mor presentation, two of the cutest girls: Olivia and Abbey, came up to me and squealed, “We absolutely LOVED Wanting Mor!” 

Olivia and Abbey just looked like little dears! Did I mention how cute they were???

I just chuckled and said, “Thanks!”

So Olivia says, “Are you going to make a sequel???”

I said, “Um, actually I am kind of working on one right now.”

They jumped and Olivia said, “What’s it about?”

And I told her that I was kind of tired of all the sad stories out of Afghanistan and I’d wanted Jameela to find a really nice guy who’d bring her out of her abandonment issues.

Then Olivia says, “That sounds great! Just add some drama and you’re all SET!”

LOL.

Now of course I’m paraphrasing the whole exchange. Abbey might have said some of this stuff, or I might have gotten the two of them mixed up. Needless to say, I was tickled pink! It is SO nice to see kids SO enthusiastic about books!

And they were just so cute!

I hear so many people grumble about kids these days!

Honestly they sound like old fogeys!

I LOVE kids. Even the more challenging ones. In fact I can easily say my favourite age group to present to is precisely the same age group that gave me the most challenges while I was growing up!

Grades 7 and 8! (Twelve to thirteen year olds!)

These are kids that some grown ups have given up on. Kids they assume don’t respond to altruistic material!

Baloney! These kids are really not that hard to reach. Be yourself, speak to them straight, be honest, and 99.9% of the time, you’ll have absolutely no problems!

And the librarian who’d organized the whole event paid me probably the biggest compliment of all!

She’d been doing yardwork over the weekend and had strained a muscle in her back.

People told her to stay home and rest it.

“But I couldn’t,” she told me! “I didn’t want to miss your presentations!”

Poor thing. She was practically walking with a limp!

But when I finished up my presentations she was grinning ear to ear!

So was I!

It was just one of those lovely lovely days!

Walking on the treadmill, doing my 5 K, the normal TV shows held no appeal for me.

And then I came upon a documentary of a guy traveling the Ganges river.

Why do I need to know about the Ganges? I actually don’t.

But I’m incurably curious.

Always have been.

I doubt I’d be an author if I wasn’t.

So I started watching this documentary and it reminded me so much of every book I’d ever read set in India, including that National Book Award-winner Sold.

And seeing all the images of India reminded me SO much of Pakistan.

I only ever saw it for three weeks, twenty years ago, but that short trip left its mark on me.

I can recall the smells–OH BOY can I recall the smells! And the feel of the place.

And I suspect that India is a LOT like Pakistan: dirty, cramped, crowded and utterly CHARMING!

People who come from those parts of the world have a HUGE advantage. What they lack in education and opportunity, they make up for in street smarts! (Took me a LONG time to acquire street smarts!)

It might not seem like much of an advantage, but in some ways it is, and I see it particularly in the next generation.

Growing up in poverty and cramped conditions seems to make  you very clever and observant but not necessarily in a good way.

When I was writing Wanting Mor I was talking to an Indian friend of mine and mentioned that Jameela, my main character, was a village girl and very uneducated.

I’ll always remember what my friend said to me. She said don’t underestimate how intelligent those village people really are. And boy was she right!

When I went to Pakistan, I went with my parents and we stayed at a relative’s house. The relative we stayed with had poor family living on the lower floor and she warned us, to lock our things but don’t call anyone a chor. That means thief.

The family downstairs had little children and they often sent them to spy on our conversations. We’d speak in English but they were so clever, it wasn’t hard for them to comprehend what we were saying, and like good little spies they’d report back to their parents.

And with their sticky little fingers, nothing was safe.

Those three weeks were a fascinating time! I could appreciate their skills even while I guarded myself against them.

And that trip was one of the main reasons I began to see my father in a completely different light.

For the first time in my life, I actually appreciated exactly what kind of world my father and mother had left, to forge our new life in Canada.

We did not grow up with sticky fingers or with the habit of spying.

Quite the contrary.

And one day my father once said that he knew that coming to Canada would be a trade off. We’d grow up with more innocence but that meant we’d sacrifice street smarts.

And I really get that.

My curiosity has probably been my greatest asset all my life. It turned me into a little knowledge sponge!

I was one of those geeky kids at school who listened avidly to the stories my teachers would read to us, and I’m even talking about back when they actually read Bible stories in public classrooms! (My favourite was Daniel and the lion’s den.)

We should be stressing this idea of being knowledge sponges more with our kids.

Curiosity.

Learning for the sake of sating our curiosity.

Reviving the art of wonder when we look at the world around us!

It’s really not that hard. Kids are born with a sense of curiosity and wonder, it’s too bad somewhere around grade four it’s drummed out of them!

When I do my storytelling presentations, in particular, the one about immigrating to Canada and becoming an author, I talk about Ms. Lister, my grade three teacher, who really awakened the wonder in me.

I talk about the Discovery Club she set up. It was a club she held during recess, where she let certain kids stay indoors and we shared things we had discovered with each other.

Think about it! She could have gone to the staff room and enjoyed a cup of jo and a good gossip with the other teachers, but instead Miss Lister spent her recesses with about nine of her students, and we were allowed to wallow in wonder!

We need to do that with our kids! Be their Miss Lister, start a discovery club!

I wish more teachers would spend that kind of time with their students, but I know it’s probably too much to ask. But it isn’t too much to ask of parents.

I recently read a news report that said that students in public schools in British Columbia got way higher marks in the first year of university than students from esteemed private schools in British Columbia.

It should have been surprising, but it isn’t.

I have been to some private schools.

I’m always surprised at how clean and tidy the students are.

And how ‘well behaved’.

I put the words ‘well behaved’ in quotations because so much of it is a fascade. I know because I watch their faces when I do my presentation on my book Dahling if You Luv Me Would You Please Please Smile. When I get to the part about suicide, the posh private students behave absolutely no different than the inner city ghetto kids.

In both cases the kids look around to see who’s watching them. And you can see it on their faces that they’re wondering if the other kids know their secret and can tell that my words are hitting home.

The main difference between kids in private schools and kids in public schools is that the private school kids are better at optics. They can put on a show of studiousness. The poorer kids don’t tend to hide in that regard.

They’re more ‘honest’ about their feelings.

(Read a pretty good book a while back called Tangerine that made this point quite well.)

And actually this is one reason why I never sent my children to private school!

Fundamentally I don’t believe that children learn better in them.

I know people who spend probably a hundred thousand dollars on the tuition of their three kids in a private school in the hopes of giving those kids a leg up.

And their kids are the most sneaky and underhanded little weasels you can imagine!

They’re keen to learn any trick that can give them an advantage over other people, but they’re not interested in genuine knowledge.

Sad really. And it’s not at all confined to Pakistani culture at all!

It seems to be turning into an epidemic.

With all the reality shows peopled with bimbos and mimbos (male bimbos), there are more and more people who are getting shallower and shallower.

Without an iota of curiosity or wonder.

Of course not ALL private school kids are like this! My point is that you can’t PAY a school to instill that essence of curiosity or wonder in your kids! It’s something someone has to do for them, and who better to model that than you?

Tell the right story and you can see it spark in kids’ eyes.

When I was growing up I was always amazed at those people who could speak of things with such knowledge, and pepper the things they said with little anecdotes and sidebars of obscure things they’d picked up on their journey of life.

Maybe I was recognizing their curiosity and sense of wonder.

My advice to others, especially if you want to be a writer: be curious! Explore the world around you and discover!

They say you should never write to just ‘say something’.

You should write when you have ‘something to say’.

And living a curious life will definitely give you heaps of things to say!

It’s one of the reasons writing is one of the few professions where you can actually get better with age!

Talk about electronic billboards! The whole place is plastered with them, each flashing and vying for your attention. I particularly remember the theatre billboard sign for a broadway version of Mary Poppin, and I thought to myself, “Mary Poppins!” I couldn’t even finish watching the darn thing when it was on TV during Christmas!

It seems to me that the reason why so many plays are based on classic movies (The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, etc.) is because a play is such an investment! You’re plunking down a LOT of your hard earned money to go see live theatre! People are only liable to do that if they are actually familiar with the story, or perhaps have heard of it.

I’m speculating.

But as I stood there, in that brisk early morning breeze, in Times Square, you know what thought really occurred to me?

It was how transient having your name on one of those electronic billboards really is.

There was also another electronic billboard nearby with the name of some popular singer–and what’s really ironic and illustrates my point even better is that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the singer!

And somehow I thought back, to the guy who must have decided that hey, this singer is big enough to be promoted on an electronic billboard in Times Square.

I could just picture the rat-faced publicist, with his shiny Italian suit and burgundy shirt, cutting deals, assessing returns on their investment, deciding how many weeks that singer’s name would be up there for all to see, and what to do if that singer’s profile was dipping in terms of prosperity.

Or maybe I was just thinking of that guy in that movie Phonebooth.

I seem to have changed an awful lot over the last few years. I wonder if it’s because of Hajj.

I really don’t know.

I have a whole different perspective on things.

I watch some of those reality shows, these days I’m hooked on Dance Moms and I can’t help feeling sorry for Abby Lee Miller the instructor. She’s huge–all belly fat–which means her cortisol levels must be through the roof and that in turn is because of stress! And she’s always got these terrible moms nagging at her and complaining.

Tonight’s show had this rival being just about as petty as anyone can possibly be, and she and one of the moms loses it and engages her in a tit for tat shouting match.

Have I gotten too mature for that kind of thing?

I swear it wasn’t that long ago that I would have felt righteously justified in taking the provocateur down!

And then when the one student whom Abby Lee has pinned all her hopes, runs off stage because she forgot her number, and with the provocateur breathing down her neck at the competition, Abby Lee starts to cry.

The Moms think she’s crying because she favours the girl who ran off the stage–but it seems to me that’s not why she was crying. Yes the girl who ran off the stage is undoubtedly more talented than most of the other girls in the class and her favourite, but I just think it was all too much for her.

And when those dance moms start haranguing Abby Lee, she just sits there and doesn’t say anything. And it looks even more like she’s guilty of favouring the girl over their own daughters.

Sometimes I think that being able to express yourself articulately is one of the most powerful attributes in the world!

If Abby Lee could have just told the mothers that she was just so disappointed, in herself for taking the bait from the provocateur rival, and for having her group number come in tenth place, after the provocateur rival’s group, and then having her star pupil run off stage and forgetting her dance was just the final straw in a very horrible day, then perhaps the mothers could have understood.

I just sat there watching the catastrophe unfold and I felt like telling her through the screen, look lady, you NEED days like this! Otherwise you’ve got nothing to strive for!

The potential of defeat is what makes competition worthwhile.

The fear of falling flat on your face only accentuates and heightens the fact that you don’t.

Frankly it makes you work harder!

And this isn’t just philosphy talking! I really mean it.

At one point she said to herself, “I’ve never been so humiliated…” And I thought that was a silly thing to say.

Humiliation itself is a pretty silly emotion.

Personally I think it occurs when you tie up your self worth into things that are outside yourself and beyond your control.

I can feel that way because of all the times I was insulted and belittled by people.

When the kids at my grade school put me down because of the colour of my skin and the peculiarities of my faith, I had to rise above it. I had to examine if they were correct in their assessment, decide they were not, and then complete disregard their opinions and instead rely on my own.

Yes there’s no vindication involved at the time, but it really is true that the best revenge is living well.

For people like that provocateur, it’s best to step back and give them room. People like that tend to self-destruct…and they do it most quickly when you don’t interfere with them.

On another note I just got back from Ottawa. It was a lovely trip. A whole different city with people unfamiliar with my work and presentations. (They hadn’t seen me in about ten years!)

But my older sister used to live in Ottawa.

The city has so many associations to her that it’s impossible to go there and not be bombarded with memories of times I drove the distance and headed down Highway 16 to her house.

And now she lies buried in the Muslim section of a cemetary just outside Carp.

And my younger sister lives in Carp.

I said to my younger sister, just this afternoon, “I wonder how many times she drove past her grave and didn’t know that was her final resting place.”

And that makes me wonder if I’ve driven past my grave yet.

My sister was born, like I was, in Lahore, Pakistan. She died a little more than 44 years later in a hospital in Ottawa. That was almost nine years ago.

All the way to Ottawa, driving along Highway 7 because it’s more scenic, I kept remembering her, and the worst thing is, it’s starting to feel *normal* that she’s gone. That she’s no longer present in our family.

Before I left to come back home, I took my younger sister and we visited her grave.

There just so happened to be a Muslim funeral going on at the time. The lanes were crowded with cars and people were gathered by the grave side a few hundred feet away.

The Muslim section of the cemetery has grown huge. When my sister was buried there, it had just opened up.

I prayed surah Fatiha for her. I made a few duas for her. But honestly, part of me just thought, she’s sleeping, leave her alone.

I’ve always felt it’s more important to take care of her children than mope about her loss. It’s what she would have wanted.

She once said to her children that if she’d never had them, her life would have turned out to be meaningless. They really were the most important accomplishment of her life. All the other projects she attempted never really fulfilled their potential.

She would be so proud of her children today.  I know I’m so proud of them! Her son is completing his masters in Economics at Cambridge university in the UK and her daughter is completing her physician’s assistant program.

My sister wasn’t even sure that her son would graduate high school!

I watch these people on these reality shows bend over backwards for some fleeting sort of fame, and it reminds me of those electronic billboards in Times Square.

Don’t they realize that good upstanding successful children are a LOT more important than having your name in lights???

*sigh* 

And talk about dedicated!

I visit a LOT of schools and you can always tell how effective a school is by the atmosphere in the office and the staff room.

The secretary is remarkably important! She often helps set the tone of the school and then there’s the principal, and the third, as far as I’m concerned, is the teacher/librarian. If those three get along, then chances are the rest of the staff will get along.

So many times I go into schools and the teachers are conscientious enough but they don’t give that extra, if you know what I mean.

In the case of today’s school the teacher in charge of my visit had seen me years ago at some sort of storytelling event. After that she’d acquired ALL of my books and read them all too! Seems a simple thing to do but you’d be surprised at how few teachers take that kind of initiative.

They really are overworked–there’s an incredible amount of preparation that goes into running their classrooms. I know a LOT of teachers and believe me when I say that I don’t take it personally at all when they can’t keep abreast of my work!!!

And then there were the student teachers at the school.

Just lovely all around.

And did I mention dedicated???

Sometimes I ask the kids if they come from another country. Usually they don’t put their hands up because it’s not them who’ve immigrated it’s their parents. But in this school, three quarters of the kids put their hands up!

With such a small inner city school where the parents are working two or three jobs, you tend to expect the kids to have disciplinary problems.

Nope.

They were lovely!

Eager and well prepared for my visit because the teachers had taken the time to familiarize the kids with my books.  (Again you’d be surprised at how often that doesn’t happen–and again I don’t take it personally.)

As long as there are such dedicated teachers out there, kids will be into learning!

Someone donated the cost of my presentations at this school.

It’s funny, but I think out of all the schools I go to, these are the types of schools I love the best.

I feel most comfortable in these circumstances.

And I feel like I do the most good!

When an occasion came up and someone asked me to tell a joke, my mind would suddenly go blank and I couldn’t remember any.

Most entertainment is like that.

Yeah, it makes you laugh at the time, but unless there’s some kernel of substance, you forget it ten minutes later.

Had lunch last week with two friends and one of them happened to quote from a book by Katherine Patterson that I had, ironically, lent her.

It was a book I’d bought and read a while back, sitting on my shelf. Apparently Katherine Patterson said that art really moves you, it changes who  you are, whereas entertainment is forgettable.

It’s interesting too because as I was growing up, I began to gravitate towards stories that I could indeed remember, and invariably those stories had some ‘message’, some ‘moral’ and yet I cringe even as I’m typing this.

When did having a ‘message’ or ‘moral’ become such a negative thing in our society?

It’s been close to a month since I did my Roses in My Carpets presentation. Somehow I’ve been telling Persian and Arabian Folktales and dealing with the picture books more than I’ve been called on to do this classic presentation of mine.

Today I did it in an inner city school for grade fives and sixes.

I’d forgotten how tall those kids could be! Part of me was a little worried as they trooped into the gymnasium and planted themselves on the floor, sprawling out in some instances so that their teachers had to tap them on the shoulders to sit up.

And yet, once I got into the familiar rhythm of the presentation, once I started telling them the story and showing them the powerpoint of the illustrations, you could have heard a pin drop!

Oh it feels so good!

And I kept remembering my friend quoting Katherine Patterson and I think I’m not too brash in thinking that yes, that presentation moved them.

People tend to think that kids these days are so technologically addicted that they won’t sit still for a presentation.

It’s nonsense!

It’s a very ‘serious’ presentation, though it does have its funny moments. And somehow it hits kids right where they’re at.

Feels like a moment of flux right now–again. I talked about it a while ago.

Right now I’m still in the midst of revisions. On Sunday I’m going up to Ottawa for four days of presentations.

Should be fun!

I’ll probably get more time to blog too without all the pressures of homelife I guess.

I’m looking forward to the presentations, meeting the kids. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.

This year has been very light in terms of presentations. I heard one teacher say it was because of the terrible economy. Schools just don’t have the money.

But it has been good for writing.

I was hoping to put the finishing touches on the Hajj novel before this Ottawa trip, but there’s no point rushing it.

I’ll take the revisions with me to work on when I have a chance.

At least there are no days when I’ll have to do four presentations next week! Today was brutally exhausting!

But satisfying.

A few weeks ago my niece gave me back my six vhs tape set of Pride & Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

I have watched that six hour series dozens of times! But the funniest thing was that my son was about two years old last time we watched it a lot! He used to actually listen to the posh dialogue and point at the screen and say, “Mr. Darcy?” He knew the character’s name!

My daughters used to watch it with me. It was a real fun time!

Then that year, for Eid, I bought the entire set for myself. Cost me about $60 which was a LOT of money for me back then! Only wish I’d bought the DVD set, although at the time we didn’t have a DVD player.

I really don’t know why Jennifer Ehle didn’t make a bigger name for herself out of that series! Colin Firth is good, but his performance isn’t nearly as crucial as hers! Ehle makes that series!!!

So anyway, a few weeks ago my niece gave the series back to me. (I’d forgotten I lent it to her.) And I started watching a few of the tapes here and there, and then my son, my big brawny seventeen year old son, said he wanted to have a Pride & Prejudice marathon with me over last weekend.

Yup! We watched all six tapes, all six hours last Saturday night. Finished at around 3 a.m. Only stopped briefly in between to pray Isha around 12 am.

And when we finished watching it, I think I detected a sigh from my son.

And I laughed to myself. Vowing that I’d blog about it.

As soon as I said as much he said, “NO!!!”

He didn’t want anyone knowing about it.

I told him relax! None of his friends ever read my blog. And so he gave me permission to mention it.

And I mention it now not out of any desire to embarrass him, but rather to make the point that true literature transcends even teenage male testosterone!

True, my son had been exposed to P&P as a toddler and he watched Hamlet with us, but still… The fact that he could appreciate Pride & Prejudice, spoke to the power of Jane Austen’s narrative.

But I do have to admit that my son said that Colin Firth needs to do an action/thriller movie now or else he’d come across as a sissy!

Imagine Mr. Darcy with a gun in his hand??? Telling some drug dealer to drop his weapons???

LOL.

Besides, I think it’s too late. After Mama Mia, Colin Firth is definitely a sissy!

And yet he’s SO dreamy in Pride & Prejudice!

Never anticipated that there’d come a time when people who have little to no affinity for my faith would write stories about it just to get their foot in the door of children’s publishing.

And to have come across the phrase ‘professional Muslims’ in a wonderful book written by a convert, is just the most delicious irony.

I’m talking about a book called The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson.

Thing is, you can never control what other people do.

I learned that lesson the hard way when I confronted Suzanne Fisher Staples about the inaccuracies in her books at a children’s literature conference in Boston.

She had written the typical western feminist narrative of a Muslim girl who balks at her identity and religion, dresses up as a boy and runs away. Yup, pretty darn insulting!

It’s funny. Now the books out there that are misrepresenting my faith (in my perspective) aren’t written so much by non-Muslims as they are written by really secular and westernized, even lapsed, people who might have been born Muslim but seem to bear little resemblance to anyone who actually gives a darn about the faith!

G. Willow Wilson called them as they are: Professional Muslims–in that they use their Muslim faith as their ‘profession’, to boost their credibility while they ridicule and undermine the tenets of their faith.

I will not name names mainly because I don’t want to give them any publicity or further credibility.

Not that long ago, I went toe to toe with one of these professional Muslims, I’ll call her “C”. I challenged ”C” regarding her scholarship during a televised debate. (Her scholarship was very shoddy! She didn’t even know the manner in which the Quran was transcribed during the lifetime of the Prophet (peace be upon him)! )

While waiting in the green room to confront this traitor to my faith, I was speaking to another traitor. A real loose cannon who’s made a nuisance of himself in Canadian media whom I’ll call him “B”. But in this regard, ”B” and I were on the same side. We were both opposed to “C” and “B” made a very interesting comment to me. He said that people like “C” made his job harder. She drove more people toward Islam than away from it because she represented the extremes that western intellectualism could lead to.

The televised debate was awful! One of my worst performances. I can laugh now, but at the time I really didn’t think it was funny!

Give “C” some credit. She’s very good with the sound bytes, and television lends itself to sound bytes!

The hilarious thing though was afterwards, “C” published an editorial in a national newspaper, thoroughly trashing “B” and calling him an anti-semite.

“B” came crying to me. Asking me to assure the T.V. hosts that “C” had misrepresented his comments.

I really didn’t want to get involved, but I did think that “C” had gone too far and I wrote an email to the T.V. show hosts saying so.

I thought that would be the end of it.

Well no. “B” decided to write a rebuttal of an editorial in the same newspaper that attacked “C”.

You can imagine where it went from there. Back and forth, tit for tat, one editorial for another, very publicly lashing out at each other, and me laughing because it was all rather funny!

Two traitors to the faith duking it out in mainstream media–both looking equally ridiculous!

And it occurred to me then, that this was just the beginning.

Attacks like this on Islam and our Prophet (peace be upon him) have been occuring for hundreds of years. They started with the orientalists. Hitti, Watt and Nicholson, are just some of the names of professors who built a profession on trashing Islam and particularly the credibility of the Prophet (peace be upon him). (by the way they were never issued fatwas for what they did either–instead Muslim scholars rose through the ages and refuted every one of their claims–which is as it should be.)

But nowadays it’s not POLITICALLY correct to have orientalist/white people doing the trashing. So the powers that be recruit lapsed Muslims to do it.

That way they can’t be accused of racism.

It’s the old divide and conquer technique, and it’s working to a certain degree.

There’s a whole segment of Muslim society who feel embarrassed by the tenets of their faith, they find them constraining, and so they follow the Professional Muslims.

In fact one of them even had the nerve to email me and ask me to join a petition calling for the legalization of alcohol and dating in Islam. I told him leave me the hell out of his stupid schemes! If he wanted to booze it up and fornicate–he was more than free to do so–nothing on earth was stopping him! Just don’t try to change the laws of Islam!

Even “B” tried to get me to join his group. He subscribed me to his email list.

Being such a loose canon I really didn’t want to piss him off, but I unsubscribed to it. He emailed me demanding to know why I didn’t want to access his ‘pearls of wisdom’. I told him flatly I didn’ t agree with him, and he should take me off the list.

He took it personally.

Nevertheless, several other times he re-subscribed me and when I inevitably asked to be removed again, he accused me of having a closed mind.

Ugh!

And now all these Professional Muslims are clogging up the literature and with the advent of self-publishing and ebooks, it’s going to be harder and harder for people to get an accurate depiction of what Islam and Muslims really stand for.

Recently I was asked to recommend a picture book about Ramadan written by some lapsed Shia where the sister decides it’s a good deed to let her brother cheat while he’s fasting in Ramadan. Needless to say I did NOT recommend the book!

The publisher sent me a copy of it and although it was beautifully illustrated, I asked for their address to mail it back because I couldn’t even keep it in my house in case my grandchildren came across it, nor would I give it as a gift to others or even a school because its basic purpose was to undermine the fasting that is key to Ramadan!

And more recently I heard of a teen novel in which the girl decides to fast during Ramadan so she can lose a few pounds and her reward at the end of it all is to lie on a beach, like a piece of meat, in a teeny tiny bikini so men can leer at her!

Yup. These are the works of Professional Muslims!

And yet, some might argue that I’m completely wrong. That these books represent the reality of a LOT of Muslims, and I guess they’d be right.

No point in railing against it.

They’re free to write their perspective and I’m free to write mine.

I told myself when I realized there was nothing I could do, or even should do, to stop Suzanne Fisher Staples, “I’ll just have to write something better!”

I repeat that to myself right now. “I’ll just have to write something better!”

But oy vey!

It’s only going to get worse!

God give me patience!