This 32 page story shares a desi family at a henna party before a wedding. There is nothing Islamic in this book by a Muslim author, it is simply cultural. The story on its own is fine. It is sweet and joy filled, as a girl tries to decide who’s name to have hidden in her henna design. I do wonder though, if the book is meant to be a window into desi culture, why the Urdu word “mehndi” isn’t used instead of henna. It mentions it in the backmatter, that mehndi is the Urdu word, but it seems a little inauthentic and western gaze presenting throughout the story, and honestly I really struggled to get past it.
The book starts with Noor entering the henna party, the night before her cousins wedding, to sing with the ladies of the family and have their hands painted. Her mother asks her if she knows about the name game, where the bride hides the grooms name on her hands, and if he finds it, he wins, and if he does not, the bride wins. Noor asks if she can hide someone’s name and her mom says yes, just tell the artist.
She watches her dad setting up decorations and wonders if she should have his name hidden. She then sees her Mama playing the dholki and singing and wonders if she should hide her mother’s name. She continues through various family members before making her decision. Along the way the reader learns about the music, the food, the clothes, and how the paste dries and leaves a color.
The page on food starts with spices, then talks of samosa and then they are eating ladoo, and while I’m glad there is not a glossary, I don’t know that the lacking context clues make any of those scrumptious foods known. I do like that her grandfather helped her pick out her lehenga, and her father is shown decorating to show full family involvement.
Ultimately, though I think the tricky thing about cultural weddings, is that every family has their own traditions, and while in a desi wedding some things might be widespread, when presenting them to readers outside your culture, it is hard to know how they will be perceived. I almost feel like this book makes it seem that every family hides names in the mehndi as a staple of the festivities. And based on other reviews I’ve read, people seem to feel that this is insightful into the culture, or that hiding and finding names has more weight, a stress even, than just being fun.
I could be over thinking it, but it feels like even the backmatter is trying to cast a wide net over every religion and culture that uses henna and ends up being oddly vague in this specific example. Like I said the book is adequate, I like that the little protagonist Noor, loves so many people and solves her dilemma on her own, it has plot, and conflict and resolution, it just seems to lack the exciting tone and thus fails in immersing the reader into the henna party.
Islamic School Librarian 