Najla Al Owais, Mariam AlJaberi, Al Zahra Al Jaberi, and Noora Anwahi here.
A 2023 SURE+ research grant was led by Dr. Myra Bacsal with her team members consisting of College of Education undergraduate students Noora Anwahi, Mariam Aljaberi, Al Zahra Aljaberi, and PhD candidate Najla Al Owais.
We started this journey in May 2023 with the intent of building a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) diverse picture book list for inclusive and culturally responsive pedagogies, specifically covering books published in the last 10-13 years.
There are 17 official United Nations SDGs, but we took the liberty of adding three more categories, after reading quite a number of diverse picture book titles which we feel do not easily fit into any of the 17 SDGs. These are (1) play, imagination, and creativity, (2) bonds of family and community, and (3) celebration of UAE culture. What inspired this research is the naming of 2023 as the year of sustainability in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
To give you a teaser, we prepared two posts featuring books from SDG 1-10 (see here for Part One), and SDG 11-17 plus our three additional themes (Part Two – this post) from our SDG booklist that are:
- Written in Arabic;
- Translated to Arabic;
- Written by an Emirati author;
- Illustrated by an Emirati illustrator;
- Published by an Emirati publishing house.
In this post, we will cover the remaining SDGs 11-17 plus one of the three additional themes we took the liberty to add (Celebration of UAE culture). As mentioned in our first post, the final list of diverse SDG picture books will be available by the end of 2024 here. Meanwhile, here is a quick glance at some Arabic and/or Emirati titles we love.
| SDG | Book Title | Languages Available |
| 13. Climate Action | The Bright Fields | Arabic |
| 14. Life Below Water | Dana’s Trip | Arabic |
| 15. Life on Land | (01) My Dad’s Date Palms,(02) The Penguin Family – بنو بطريق
(03) When Air Thinks. |
(01) Arabic(02) Arabic & English
(03) Arabic |
| 16. Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions | The Sound of the Sea | Arabic |
| 17. Partnerships for the Goals | Sheikh Zayed Trilogy | Arabic |
| Others: Celebration of the UAE | (01) The Portrait of the 2nd of December,(02) Grandmas’ Tinka,
(03) Khattaf Rafay |
(01) Arabic(02) Arabic
(03) Arabic & English |
حقول مضيئة The Bright Fields
Dana’s Journey
Emirati author Salha Ghabish penned a beautiful tale told from the perspective of a pearl named Dana, who eagerly awaits being caught by the pearl divers. Her best friend Moza does not share her sentiments and buries herself in the sand to hide. Dana is eventually seen and caught, then sold to be made into a beautiful pearl necklace worn by a little girl with the same name Dana.
We found this tale endearing as it started out in the sea, with the play on words of the pearls’ names, which are both female given names in Arabic, that signify different types of pearls. The picture book gives us a glimpse of life below sea with the oyster’s habitat and this can be researched further by students. This also sheds light on many issues: pearl diving in the UAE, the types of pearls per size and luster, as well as family bonds and family life in the past. See here for our #UAEReads post on two other picture books in English on pearl diving in the Arabian gulf.
My Dad’s Date Palms نخيل أبي
The picture book tells a moving storyline where the young daughter processes her grief for her father through nourishing his palm trees and showing generosity with the harvested golden date fruits as he used to do. The picture book displayed beautiful art, with clear imprints of crayons which take us to the perspective of pure childhood of the main character, the little girl.
The picture book displayed beautiful art, with clear imprints of crayons which take us to the perspective of pure childhood of the main character, the little girl. Furthermore, the picture book spotlights date palms as a family treasure, a legacy with its own rituals, from seedling to steady watering to harvesting. The young girl worried about who would take care of the palm trees after she realized her father is gone, Thus, she took on that duty and revived her father’s memory. In this picture book, palm trees are an inseparable element of one’s family traditions and routines. Here is one of our favorite quotes from this picture book: “We sowed just like Dad. We collected just like Dad. And we gave just like Dad. Just like Dad was with us.”
My Dad’s Date Palms is published in Arabic language authored by Dr Rima Zuhair Al-Kurdi, a Jordanian children’s literature author, founder of a smart platform for Arabic Language learning “Jana Reading Platform,” and currently works in the colleges of KAUST in Saudi Arabia. The illustrator is Maitha Al Khayat, an Emirati author, illustrator, and trainer in children’s literature.
عندما يفكر الهواء When Air Thinks
When Air Thinks by Emirati author Alyaziya Khalifa is a picture book that encourages imagination, where a child blows into the air and goes through a journey in nature. The book poses questions with regard to nature, animals and animal habitat and provides non-fiction facts related to these animals at the end of the book. The illustrations are beautiful and nostalgic and the interplay between text and image is beautiful. The target age for the book is probably 4-12, where younger kids are introduced to the animals and their habitats and older kids can use this as a springboard to research different habitats or to write an imaginary tale from the perspective of one of the animals, similar to how this was told through the perspective of ‘air’.
The Bedouin Penguins بنو بطريق
Asma Al Ketbi’s witty picture book features a family of penguins living in Ski Dubai, who have decided to visit Liwa Oasis for a change of scenery, and to taste their famous delicious dates. As we follow the family on their adventurous trip, we see Dubai and the UAE through their eyes. The illustrations by renowned Maitha Al Khayat are delightful and complement the story line. The picture book touches upon the natural habitat of animals, compares between two extreme habitats and offers young readers a wonderful fiction-based background for such a topic. The book is available in both Arabic and English
The sound of the sea صوت البحر
Written by Lebanese Rania Zbib Doher and illustrated by Italian Debora Guidi, this book represents children across the globe who are experiencing misfortune. It is a moving book with great illustrations. It is a plea for children’s happiness from the UAE to the rest of the world.
Sheikh Zayed Trilogy
The Portrait of the 2nd of December
My Grandma’s Tinka
A little girl had fun in her grandmother’s old box, tinka, which was used to store clothing and other items in the past and is still seen in most Emirati houses. The unnamed girl finds her mother’s old clothes and wears them. As she wears each dress she finds, she goes on a little adventure and learns why the dress design is called so. This is a charming book that introduces the reader to the familiar types of fabric designs in the UAE and the reasons behind their naming. There is a short description at the end of the book detailing each fabric design’s details.
Khattaf Raffay
We are now in the final stages of concluding this summer undergraduate research experience project, and we hope to continue with the second phase where we hope to seek out recommendations this time from international school librarians on enriching the SDG booklist. We hope that the booklist will be useful and considered a resource not only in schools and libraries – but to all lovers of picture books written in various languages, wherever they may be in the world.
About the Guest Contributors for #UAEReads:
Najla Al Owais is a PhD candidate studying Math Education at UAEU. She has previously worked as a middle school mathematics teacher, and a freelance translator and interpreter. She is passionate about teaching mathematics, and is an avid reader, and loves finding the intersection between both mathematics and reading. She has a Bachelor’s of Science from Zayed University in Math Education and Masters of Arts from the American University of Sharjah in English-Arabic-English Translating and Interpreting. Wherever she goes, books find her. She hopes to one day publish her own book.
Mariam Aljaberi is an undergraduate student at UAEU majoring in Special Education with a concentration on Mild and Moderate disabilities and is a part-time SURE+ research assistant. She was born and raised in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi. She has a passion for improving the special education system in her country.
Al Zahra Al Jaberi is a fresh graduate from UAEU, holding a bachelor’s degree in special education with a specialization in Gifted and Talented Education. Now, equipped with academic expertise and a heart for nurturing young minds, she aspires to make a positive impact in her field.
Noora Anwahi is an undergraduate student at UAEU majoring in Special Education with a concentration on Mild and Moderate disabilities and is a part-time SURE+ research assistant. She was born and raised in Dubai, UAE. As an educator, she aims to create learning experiences that allow her students to grow a life-long enthusiasm for learning.
#UAEReads strives to be reflective of the diverse demographic population that makes up the country of the United Arab Emirates (see Global Media Insight source of demographics as of 2024). Hence, we will be featuring literature coming from the major nationalities comprising the entire country: Emiratis, Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Egyptians – and other nationalities who have made UAE their home.
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
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 
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