Simon & Schuster's Salaam Reads publishes Muslim children's book

Book may seem like reaction to Trump administration, but author insists it is “reclamation of identity”

Recently published book “Yo Soy Muslim: A father’s letter to his daughter” by Salaam Reads – an initiative of publisher Simon & Schuster focusing on Muslim-based picture chapter books, is addressed to young Muslims growing up in the age of Islamophobia and xenophobia.

Mark Gonzalez, a Mexican-American writer and poet, authored a 32-page picture book with illustrations by Mehrdokht Amini, dedicated it to his real-life daughter, Sirat.



“Dear little one,” he writes. “… know you are wondrous, / A child of crescent moons, / a builder of mosques, / a descendant of brilliance, / an ancestor in training…”

A Muslim, Latino, Tunisian and American – Gonzalez encompasses multiple heritages. While the timing of the book may seem like a reaction to the Trump administration, the author insists it is “reclamation of identity.”

“This was written before. [Trump’s] got more than enough press and publicity and has been given way more attention than he should be given at this moment anyway. I refuse to let him be in the center of my daughter’s narrative,” said Gonzales.

Inspired by 1969 poem “Yo Soy Joaquin” by a Chicano boxer and political activist Rodolfo Corky Gonzales, Yo Soy Muslim addresses the young Muslims of America. “How does one navigate a world in which you come out of the womb and you have an experience of love… around parents who give you love, but then you’re in a society that often sends you signals that maybe you aren’t loved here, and maybe you aren’t welcome here?” asks Gonzales.



“Yo soy Muslim, Our prayers were here / before any borders were,” reads the poem. Growing up Gonzales says he was around but never saw himself in stories. “It’s what I call the narrative of invisibility or a narrative of demonisation.”

“‘Where are you from?’ is often a passport question, and what’s interesting about that question is that you answer it and somehow the person who’s asking it feels they often have the right to veto your answer,” says Gonzales. “‘Where is home?’ is a great question, far more imaginative to me than “where are you from?’”

This story originally appeared on the Good Education.