Four Arabic Books for Young Readers Named As 2020 ‘White Ravens’ Selections

The International Youth Library today published its 2020 White Ravens list: an annual selection of recommended children’s and youth literature from around the world.

Each year, a multilingual team at the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, selects recently published books that they consider especially noteworthy: in art, theme, literary style, or design. This year’s 114-page White Ravens catalogue contains a selection of 200 notable children’s and young adult books from 56 countries published in 36 languages.

Four of the selected titles were written in Arabic: three are picture books and one is a coming-of-age YA novel recommended for readers 14+.

The four books are:

Hikaya tarwiha al-khyut (A Story Told by Threads), by Nabiha Mheidly, ill. Hassan Zahreddine. A picture book published by Dar al-Hadaek in 2018. From the booklet:

Nabiha Mheidly’s original, poetic story about threads and the art of telling a story by interweav- ing narratives is a masterpiece both in terms of its form as well as its language. 

Hala (Aura), by Moemen Helmy, ill. Matze Döbele. A picture book published by Yanbow al-Kitab in 2019. From the booklet:

The perceptive story, written in beautiful language, is accompanied by restrained black-and-white pictures in which only the colour- ful halos of individual people shine forth intensely.

Sirr A’sad (Asad’s Secret), by Najla’ Atallah. A Young Adult novel published by Tamer Institute in 2018. From the booklet:

Author Najla Atallah (b. 1987), who hails from Gaza, sensitively and genuinely captures the young man’s life as well as the hard reality of the largest Palestinian city. 

Al-himar w al-bulbul (The Donkey and the Nightingale), by Jekar Khourchid, ill. Ghazaleh Bigdelou. A picture book published by Dar Al-Aalam Al-Arabi in 2019. From the booklet:

Jekar Khourchid tells the story in a lively, humorous and fast-paced way. The text lends itself well to being read aloud and is accompanied by Ghazaleh Bigdelou’s double-page colour illustra- tions, which caricature the animals in comical ways. 

This year’s Arabic specialist was Dr. Azad Hamoto. The list is always published in the lead-up to Frankfurt Book Fair, set to open on October 14. While the catalog is usually available as a print edition, since Frankfurt Book Fair will take place mostly online this year, the IJB has produced a digital-only version which can be downloaded as as a PDF.