Sakina and the Uninvited Guests

On a day when a sandstorm’s “dust has made the city orange,” young Sakina reluctantly accompanies her mother to a museum rather than the hoped-for beach. There, she sees only “old, boring, boring things,” Marwan (The Strangest Fish) writes. But she is taken aback by her mother’s perceptions: “this looks like my uncle, that looks like my mom,” Mama says in tearful wonder; “I used to have a ring like this. And doesn’t this look familiar?” Back home, Sakina finds three museum objects that have come to life and accompanied her home—“an eager, chubby crocodile, a cluelessly shy blue jaguar, and a clumsy lion with wings.” Pursuing them through the residence leads her to a photograph of her grandmother and a realization that she, too, is a vessel of history and connection: “Thousands and thousands of years, in little Sakina.” Watercolor and ink illustrations alternate between softly colored, whimsical sketches of reality and dreamy, impressionistic lapis images that show Sakina and her mother as part of the flow of time and generations. The protagonists are portrayed with pale skin and black hair. An author’s note concludes alongside a contextualizing note about how “language functions as a visual art in the Islamic world.” Ages 4–8. Agent: Anne Moore Armstrong, Bright Agency. (Apr.)