Abdulla Al Owais here.

Today, I will share two books with you. The first one is about Kana Kana, a man who lives with his wife in a small house, and one day a colorful bird visits them.

Kana Kana

Author: AbdulAziz Al Musallam (Emirati) Illustrator: Nasim Abaein (Iranian) Published by: Kalimat (2013)  ISBN: 978-9948-20-220-2

They thought the bird was special and beautiful and believed that the bird gave them luck, so the man told his wife to take care of the bird while he traveled. However, during the man’s travels the bird escaped from its cage and when he got back, he looked for the bird all around the nearby villages next to his. One day he went to a little store and saw his bird there, but the shopkeeper refused to give him back the bird and said “I got this bird from India, and I paid a lot of money”. Angry, the man decided to complain to the sheikh. The sheikh said how can you tell me it’s yours if you don’t have any evidence. To know whose bird it was, the sheikh told them both to talk to the bird to see who the bird will go to, and that’s how the sheikh of the town knew who was telling the truth.

I think this book teaches us the importance of being honest, and smart ways to solve problems. My favorite part of the story is how the man got his bird back. I liked the smart way the Sheikh solved the problem. My favorite illustration was when the man caught the colorful bird. I also noticed that there were many frames throughout the book that showed textures of Emirati design and art.

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Who is faster, wins.

Title is an Emirati/Arabic proverb that resembles the English proverb the early bird catches the worm. Author: Rania Zaghir (Syria/Lebanon) Illustrator: Elie Abu Jaoude & Michael Antakli Editor: Ali Al Shaali  (UAE) Published by: Alhudhud – UAE (2018)  ISBN: 9789948394938

This is about a girl who asks her mom questions, but her mom doesn’t answer her questions in a normal way but gives her old sayings for her to figure out. These sayings are in Emirati Arabic, but I didn’t know any of them until I read the explanation in the book. One of my favorite sayings is when the mom says “When the rooster lays an egg”, which means it will never happen. In English, I have read the saying “When pigs fly”, which I think means the same thing.

Another one is when her mother keeps on asking her to tidy her room, and then she says to her, “An ear made of mud, and an ear made of dough”, and she means that her daughter never listens to her when she asks her to do her chores. In English, there is also a similar saying which is “What goes in one ear, and comes out the other”. I also liked the saying in the title, which means the one who is faster will always catch the prize.

I liked this book because it taught me how to understand the Emirati sayings in a fun way, and now I can use them with my friends and family.

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For #WorldKidLit Wednesdays throughout the month of March, we have Emirati kid reviewers share their thoughts about the books that they read. In case you missed it, we had Abdulla Al Owais share his thoughts on a picturebook entitled Two Great Leaders, Noor Al Owais shared her favourite Maitha Al Khayat picturebooks here, and earlier today Noor Al Owais also shared about an anthology of amazing women from the Middle East.

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About the Guest Contributor for #UAEReads:

Abdulla Al Owais is from Sharjah in the UAE and he is a 3^rd grader at Ajman Academy. He is very active and loves sports like football, taekwondo and tennis.

You can find him building lego sets, or sketching in his sketch book. He enjoys reading and listening to his yoto.

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About the Guest Editor/Curator for March 2024 [#UAEReads]:

Myra Garces-Bacsal has served as a teacher educator for 15 years and has led several research projects on reading and social emotional learning, diverse picturebooks and teacher practices, psychology of high creatives and exceptional people, culturally responsive and inclusive education. She is a quintessential lover and creator of booklists (see her Social and Emotional Learning bookshelf here and other publications below). Myra serves as the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies with the College of Education, UAE University. She is a self-proclaimed nerd who lives and breathes books and enjoys organizing events and festivals where fellow nerds converge and attempt to joyfully change the world.

Publications on booklists:

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2023). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review, 45(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2022.2145397

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Al Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. M., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou (Ed.), Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4680-5.ch005

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Singapore: Springer International Handbooks of Education. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-3041-4_18

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420901856