This non fiction book spread over 56 pages on an AR 4.0 level is the biography of the famed Iraqi architect’s inspiration, triumph over obstacles and accomplishments. It doesn’t go in to great detail of her life, but gives enough information for children to become familiar with her and be inspired by all that she accomplished not only as an Arab, Muslim woman, but as an architect and trail blazer of design and structure. The pages are beautifully illustrated and the simple text flows and dances around the pages like her buildings in real life.
Born in Iraq where rivers flow, wind swoops across sand dunes, and cities existed thousands of years ago, Zaha finds designs and shapes throughout her home and the city of Baghdad. She has ideas about arrangements of furniture and designs of clothing, she loves that dunes and rivers and marshes don’t have corners.
She is a Muslim that attends Catholic school and loves math. She goes to London for college to study to be an architect. She is relentless in her passion and fills notebooks with plans, paintings with what she sees in her mind and graduates with honors.
She opens her own office and with a few friends, she designs buildings that swoosh and zoom and flow and fly. The world is not a rectangle, but unfortunately no one wants to build her designs. She keeps entering competitions, and winning, but they refuse to build her buildings.
She designs buildings that come from her memory of grasses swaying, and wind blowing over dunes, and shells being cradled. She designs an opera house like a pebble in the water, with the singer the pearl. A ski jump that reaches the sky like a mountain.
One by one, Zaha’s designs become buildings all over the world. She has over 400 employees and designs buildings, shoes, doll houses, furniture, she does what she likes and urges others to do so as well. Zaha passed away in 2016, but her visions are still carried out.
This Wonder Woman story of Princess Diana as a young girl is not noteworthy because of its groundbreaking storytelling, but more for the fact that the series and story is by a Pakistani-American Muslim author. I am not sure how authors are assigned or chosen to write these reimagined character series, but I think it is a great compliment to her writing and a great mainstream representation of diversity that we should celebrate. Even more exciting is the subtle addition of Diana’s best friend, Princess Sakina, daughter of Queen Khadijah to the story, and that while they are citizens of fictitious world of Greek gods, they seem to spout Islamic wisdom on occasion, and be equally strong and important to the adventure at hand. The book is meant for middle grades and at 288 pages is a fun light read for girls and boys of all ages.
This graphic novel swept me off my feet and left me in tears, not because of the hard life and sadness that life in a refugee camp entails, I had braced myself for that, but because of the hope and humanity and beauty that is so powerfully expressed and conveyed in this 264 page book. Meant for 3rd graders and up, I think kids through middle school should be encouraged to read it. The illustrations and colors are incredibly well done and the story is based on a true story that needs to be told and shared. It is definitely in the top 10 books I’ve read this year and I keep catching my 11 year old re-reading this book repeatedly (like 5 or 6 times).
Islamic School Librarian 