Reviews for Nabeel's New Pants: An Eid Tale

The average rating for Nabeel's New Pants: An Eid Tale based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-09-08 00:00:00 Douglas Arbuckle Generally speaking, I am delighted when I stumble upon some new retelling of a traditional tale, as I love to compare different interpretations of the same story. I am particularly pleased when I see that the folk or fairy-tale in question is long out-of-print, and that the new edition is making it available to young readers once again. Unfortunately, it looks like Fawzia Gilani-Williams' Nabeel's New Pants will be the rare exception to that rule. The story of Nabeel the Shoemaker, who sets out to buy his wife, mother, and daughter gifts for Eid, it is clearly a retelling of the Turkish story of Trousers Too Long and Too Short, collected by Prof. Ahmet E. Uysal in a small village in southern Turkey, and retold in 1974 by Barbara K. Walker, in New Patches For Old . Some of the details have been changed: in the Ahmet/Walker version, Hasan the Shoemaker buys his wife a blouse, his mother a scarf, and his daughter some hair ribbons; whereas Nabeel buys his wife a burqa (some things apparently don't improve with age), his mother a dupatta (a head scarf), and his daughter some bangles. Ms. Gilani-Williams also gives her retelling a more specific time-line, making the upcoming festival a celebration of Eid, rather than the generic "holiday" anticipated by Hasan. But although they differ in some details, these two stories are clearly the same, both in their structure, and in their resolution. The Library of Congress data on the colophon of Nabeel's New Pants even lists "Turkey-fiction" as the fourth subject heading for the book, indicating that someone involved in the production of this title knew about the story's origin. And therein lies the crux of the problem. Nowhere - in the jacket blurbs, on the title page or colophon, or in the text itself - is it made plain that this is a folktale. The "retold by" that precedes Ms. Gilani-Williams' name is the only hint that this is not her own original creation. I've railed at folkloric retellings before, complaining of lack of attribution, but I don't think I've ever seen one that so completely obscured its source material, and the fact that it even was a folktale! If I hadn't been familiar with the Walker/Ahmet book - long out-of-print and not readily available - I would have just assumed that this story was Gilani-Williams' own, and I suspect young readers would do the same. There are far better Eid and Ramadan stories out there, and more straightforward folkloric retellings as well - I recommend the reader seek those titles out instead.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-03-05 00:00:00 Kyle Horner I liked this book and was disappointed in it all at the same time! I was disappointed that this book does not go through more information about what Ramadan is and how big of a deal Eid is at the end of Ramadan. I just feel like it would have been a good teaching opportunity. On the other hand I liked this book because it was a nice story about family and how they can be busy and still find the time to do things for each other. I also learned about names for clothing and specific names of Eid foods. So in that respect I did learn some interesting information. I think I wanted just a little more focus on the holiday's themselves.