Common Threads: Adam's Day at the Market

by Huda Essa, Mercè Tous (Illustrator)

Overview

2020-2021 Keystone to Reading Elementary Book Award List Adam and his family spend an exciting day at the colorful and bustling Eastern Market. But when Adam gets briefly separated from Mom and Dad, he mistakes a friendly, diverse cast of characters for his parents in their traditional Muslim clothing--and shows that we all have more in common than you might think. This nearly-wordless picture book celebrates diversity and community in vibrant, dynamic art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534146464
Publisher:	Sleeping Bear Press
Publication date:	08/15/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	79 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 Months to 5 Years

About the Author

Huda Essa has been a teacher since she was a child. Her first students were her stuffed animals. When she became a teacher as a grown up, she loved finally having human children as her students! Now, as a speaker and author, Huda is a teacher to adult humans, too. Huda’s debut book, Teach Us Your Name, and her TEDx Talk, “Your Name is the Key!” teach us to use our names to learn more about ourselves and to embrace our wonderful human diversity. Huda teaches all over the world, but lives in Michigan. You can visit her online at culturelinksllc.com or @culturelinksllc on Instagram and Twitter.

Mercè was in Barcelona, Spain, where she still lives. As a young child, she spent a lot of time drawing and painting with her grandfather, her first art teacher. She graduated from the University of Barcelona with a Fine Arts degree and continued her studies to specialize in illustration. Today, Mercè enjoys working as a freelance illustrator. When not illustrating, she likes to spend her time in nature with friends and dancing to swing and folk music.

Table of Contents

Beginning of text Becoming a cultural detective

Editorial Reviews

2019-06-23
In this nearly wordless picture book, young Adam wanders away from his parents at the busy outdoor market, but diverse strangers help him find them again.

Brown-skinned Adam wanders through Eastern Market with his mom, a dark-skinned woman wearing a blue hijab and long tunic, and his dad, a light-skinned man wearing a kufi and shalwar kameez. When he spots a scavenging blue jay, he follows it to watch it eat peanuts. He taps a woman from behind, asking, "Isn't it neat, Mama?" But he is surprised when the woman turns around: Although her hair is covered and she wears a long, blue dress, it's a kindly stranger, not his mom. Small vignettes show Adam wandering through the crowd at the adults' waist level, repeatedly mistaking other grown-ups for his parents, often based on similar styles of dress whose variations indicate other cultures (for example, a habit, a head wrap, and a sari). As he keeps searching, the strangers begin searching for his parents too, resulting in a reunion in which all of the adults greet each other warmly. The colorful illustrations invite basic seek-and-find fun as well as offering meaning at a deeper level for readers who want to identify the cultures represented. An afterword titled "Becoming a Cultural Detective" asks readers to consider clothing as just one indication of identity and encourages cultural curiosity but does not identify the clothing and cultures in the book.

A visual feast filled with food for thought. (Picture book. 3-9)

Kirkus Reviews