 Our friends at Rethinking Schools put together a great article about the way children's and young adult literature portrays Muslim girls. The article, "Save the Muslim Girl" demonstrates some very specific ways in which girls living in Islamic societies are stereotyped. Reading that article, though, made me extra pleased that we had recently discovered a book that breaks some of those stereotypes, The Shepherd's Granddaughter. About the Shepherd's Granddaughter: Ever since she was a little girl, Amani has wanted to be a shepherd, just like her beloved grandfather, Sido. For generations her family has grazed sheep above the olive groves of the family homestead near Hebron, and she has been steeped in Sido's stories, especially one about a secret meadow called the Firdoos, where the grass is lush and the sheep grow fat, and about the wolf that once showed him the path there.
But now Amani's family home is being threatened by encroaching Jewish settlements. As she struggles to find increasingly rare grazing land for her starving sheep, her uncle and brother are tempted to take a more militant stance against the settlers.
Then she accidentally meets Jonathan, an American boy visiting his father, one of the settlers on Sido's Peak. Away from the pressures of their families, and despite their differences, the two young people discover Sido's secret meadow, the domain of a lone wolf. And Amani learns that she must share the meadow, and even her sheep, with the wolf, if she is going to continue to use it. The Book Compared to Others in the Genre "Save the Muslim Girl!" reminded me of several of the books I have read, enjoyed, and recommended over the past few years, including the Breadwinner trilogy (by Deborah Ellis) and Wanting Mor. The article gave me a lot to think about and in the future, when I evaluate books that include Muslim girls as important characters, I'll reflect on some of the guidance Rethinking Schools has put together. I'd like to look at a few examples of truths of stereotyping that Rethinking Schools reveals in their article, and how The Shepherd's Granddaughter breaks away from the mold. Learning a Stereotype Lesson #1: Muslim Girls Are Veiled, Nameless, and Silent Young adult books about the Muslim girl usually feature a veiled adolescent on the cover. Her face is cropped and concealed, usually by her own hands or her veil. Much of her face is covered, including, most significantly, her mouth.
Amani, the main character in the Shepherd's Granddaughter, is shown on the front cover standing out in a field, with a purple headscarf just covering her hair, and a beautiful flowing dress. One arm is visible, wearing a watch, and she's carrying a shepherd's crook in her hand. She is looking at the camera, or more precisely, at the reader. Throughout the book she is anything but silent and takes a strong role in determining her own destiny. Learning a Stereotype Lesson #2: Veiled = Oppressed Gendered violence in Middle Eastern countries, or the threat of it, organizes many of the books’ plots.
Because Amani is not veiled in this story, and little mention is made of veils for the rest of the women in her life (some of them wonderfully strong), the Shepherd's Granddaughter breaks this stereotype as well. Still, because the book's focus is on the oppression of the Israeli occupation, the stereotype of Muslim girls being oppressed is still clearly found in this book. BUT, another key difference between this and other books is that Amani is NOT oppressed by the men in her life at all, or even by the Israeli soldiers because of her gender. While some in her family would prefer she go to school instead of being a shepherd, none are saying she should stay home hidden by a veil. In fact, her grandfather is the one who insists she be given the shepherd's crook to carry on a role that had been handed down from father to son for many generations. Other men, including a Rabbi and a veterenarian, play pivotal roles in Amani's story, and treat her with great respect, dignity, and kindness. Learning a Stereotype Lesson #3: Muslim Girls and Women Want To Be Saved by the West For many in the West, the plight of Afghanistan is framed exclusively within a post 9/11, U.S.-led “war on terror.” While radical women’s organizations like RAWA have condemned brutality against women in Afghanistan for decades, their voices were absent, and are now muted, in a landscape of storytelling that is dominated by white Western women representing them.
The author of this book is, as in many of the other titles mentioned in Rethinking School's article, a white woman. Little mention is made of anyone from the West helping Amani and her family, though the West is represented by the Israeli occupation and Israeli soldiers. What Amani comes to realize, as her story unfolds, is that in order for her to save her way of life, help her family and her village and her people, is for her to give up her last sheep and go to school so that she can learn English and the law and take matters into her own hands. Teaching A More Complicated Truth While The Shepherd's Granddaughter breaks many of the stereotypes all-too-often applied to Muslim girls in teen/tween fiction, it will upset some readers who have a more sympathetic view of the Israeli side of the struggle with Palestinians. Which, again, is one of the reasons I really like the article by Rethinking Schools. The article ends by encouraging the reader to realize that what we're teaching is a more complicated truth. Reach And Teach is all about teaching the more complicated truths, or more accurately, teaching that there are different shades of truth to be found, depending on the lens through which you view any situation. If by reading this article, this is the first time you're learning about Rethinking Schools, we encourage you to get to know them much better. They have done amazing work for many years and we are honored to be able to distribute quite a few of their best books for teachers. Consider subscribing to their journal, which brings you articles like "Save the Muslim Girl!"  And... we highly recommend The Shepherd's Granddaughter as a great read for tweens/teens. Combine it with a book like Deborah Ellis' Three Wishes in which the stories of Israeli and Palestinian children are told, illustrating very complicated truths, as seen directly through the eyes of the real children living in a state of war. Plus, author/editor Deborah Ellis does a fantastic job of introducing each of the children's interviews with significant details of historical context and current situations on the ground.
Click here to visit our store page for The Shepherd's Granddaughter which includes additional recommendations for companion books. |
