But it’s the dang closest thing I’ve gotten to a perfect book for a South Asian kid that doesn’t make me feel bad or put on a spotlight about how different growing up can be.Īlso, my nearly-4-year-old niece sat through reading it, multiple times. Is the daal they make my exact kind of daal? No. The one quick scene where Bilal gets hurt by friends wondering how weird the daal’s gonna be is even on point-it’s there bc it can and DOES happen often, but brushed past bc the focus is on the important thing: how delicious daal is, and sharing it with friends.

It has diversity in the other kids who make up Bilal’s friends, and it’s so nice too that Bilal’s abu makes the food.

But it’s about a specific, IMPORTANT aspect of culture: a staple food. It’s about a brown kid-one that could be from any number of South Asian cultures. This book is the ONLY one we’ve read that fits everything we wanted. LET ME SEE MYSELF SIMPLY EXIST WITH NO DETRIMENTS. If it happened to feature an element of brown culture, even better. We just wanted a nice, happy, chill book that features a brown kid doing cool things. The other set are issues that feel like a “how to be brown in the diaspora” primer about tough things you’re gonna face. But the religious-focused ones always feel like they’re A Lesson To White Kids about diversity (especially with so many art styles that seem like they’re influence by Islamic Art). When we find the rare book that doesn’t, it ends up focusing on a negative aspect of our cultures-which like, sure, these books will help some kids, there’s always a need for them. Something that my sister and I have been STRUGGLING to find is South Asian picture books that don’t focus on religion.

Bilal makes daal