Birthday Kunafa by Rifk Ebeid illustrated by Noor Alshalabi
This 50 page wordless picture book allows readers to make up their own words to describe the progression of what is shown in the illustrations. With no right or wrong, the backmatter helps give context and points out key images that allow the story to resonate on multiple levels. On the surface it is a birthday girl who is upset she cannot have kunafa, but when you truly look at the pictures, and see what is preventing her from moving from Jerusalem to Nablus, the reader is shown, she is not just a child wanting something she can’t have, but that she is being denied basic rights by an occupying force. I love that the little girl represents so much more than just herself, and that her determination to cross checkpoints, is not just about acquiring dessert. The book starts with a little girl on her birthday that could represent a little girl with her friends and family anywhere, but as the pages are turned you witness how beautiful Palestinian joy is, how much we take for granted the freedom to move, and how desperately we need to stand up for a free Palestine. With no words, Islamic representation is limited to two hijabis in the illustrations. The author and illustrator are Muslim. The book centers a birthday, there is dancing dabkah and an oud shown leaning up against a wall.
So often when thinking about Palestine, not just since October, we all find ourselves speechless. There are no words, only tears when watching the news, reading headlines, or scrolling, and I find it incredibly timely for a wordless picture book about Palestine to be published. There are a few labels so to speak throughout the book that I didn’t particularly find necessary, but they do not distract from the story, so they didn’t bother me. I like that the book showed restraint in terms of the oppression that could have been shown. It allows for the story of the little girl and her family to maintain the narrative.
The story that I understood the images to be telling is that it is a little girl’s birthday, the family is having a party, they have a birthday cake, but she wants kunafa, she tries to get some and along the way sees joy everywhere, until the checkpoints turn the images gray, and prevent her from moving forward. So mama and her problem solve, they try and make their own, but it is not the same, so they devise a plan, and they try again. They do not give up. There is no giving up.
The backmatter provides a recipe for kunafa, a two page spread about “Why Wordless Picture Books,” another spread about “Context Matters” giving information about Zionism and Palestinian resistance. It is then followed by four pages entitled “Did You See?” where symbols are shown that appear in the pages and described. Warning there are numerous sweet and savory foods shown, and it will make you very hungry.
The book is available here from Crescent Moon or here from Amazon.
