And that might be a good thing! I’ve been on the roster of an arts organization that promotes artist presentations in the schools for probably about ten years. I’ve visited thousands of schools, in person, as a result of it. In fact when I first started out I was doing about a hundred school visits […]

Everyone is dealing with an upended new reality what with the pandemic and all. I’ve lost gigs and income but on the whole, I count myself fortunate. And in the grand scheme of things I’ve decided to give back, do what I can to make life a bit more bearable. What can I give back? […]

My family is unusual. Me, I am the sports fan whereas my husband could care less. It was one of the things I admired about him when we got married. He wasn’t into watching sports. So it is above ironic that I became the sports person. I see it as halal entertainment. There’s nothing kinky […]

I’m really worried about this next generation of children. In response to serious abuse from some nefarious teachers (that absolutely had to be dealt with!) we’ve really undermined the whole system. As an author/storyteller, when I go into a school I’m fully aware that most of the children have no intention of following my line […]

but that does not mean that Islam is being promoted in any way. Islamic Heritage month is like Asian heritage month or Pride month or Black History month, simply a chance for schools to recognize the contribution of the disparate members of our community. Canada really does try to be ‘multi-cultural’. We try to include […]

It is always such an honor to be invited to judge a storytelling festival! This was my second stint as judge at the Kanoon festival and I can’t believe how different an experience it was from the first time! One person came up to me, I think it was an Iranian administrator or something, and […]

Recently I was approached by a thoughtful teacher librarian who questioned the addition of this book on my Muslim booklist: The teacher librarian wrote: “I am a public school librarian in a diverse, growing community. We have recently seen an increase in our immigrant/refugee population, particularly of students whose families are from Arab or Middle […]

There’s an OISE article about how anthropomorphic animal stories are not as effective at conveying lessons as stories with real children in them. https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/oise/About_OISE/OISE_study_shows_kids_learn_more_effectively_from_stories_with_humans_than_with_human-like_animals.html I am not surprised by these findings. The study was done on pre-schoolers. That age is not conducive to ambiguity. You need to spell it out. And yet so many parents […]