Nadia's Hands Book

In connection to a school-wide (K-12) reading project, my students have been learning about Pakistan and Afghanistan and the lives of contemporary children in Central Asia. The goal of my partner teacher and I has been to share a range of stories and ideas that begin to show the diversity of Central Asian peoples and cultures. And while the books we've read have often featured people living on the other side of the world, many of the characters' challenges connect directly to our challenges in the classroom, in our families, or in our city. And by exploring the similarities we share, in addition to our differences, we have been working to understand that there are many ways to do things and many ways to meet the same set of human needs. By highlighting the differences among people from Central Asia and the differences among the members of our own classroom, we hope to validate and honor the lived experiences of all.

Nadia's Handsis the story of Nadia, a Pakistani-American girl who is preparing to be the flower girl in her Auntie Laila's wedding. Pakistani tradition has members of the wedding party wear mehndi (temporary designs drawn onto the body with henna), but Nadia doesn't want to. The text says, "She didn't want the mehndi. It would make her hands orange, it wouldn't wash off, and she didn't want to go to school like that on Monday. She was worried." Through the course of the story, Nadia learns pride in this aspect of her Pakistani heritage and culture. As the wedding ceremony concludes, the text reads: "She thought about Monday. Maybe she could show her hands during sharing time. Linda Murakami came with her grandmother's kimono once, and Rashid shared the kente cloth his mother brought back from her trip to Africa. She would share her hands from Pakistan."

The story had easy connections to my students' lives because many of them have attended weddings and/or been involved in large celebrations with family and friends. They were able to compare and contrast their experiences with Nadia's. My students also enjoyed learning some of the Urdu words within the text and extending what they learned about mehndi from the text to a further exploration of traditional and contemporary mehndi designs.