What Shall We Play Now?

Cape, butterfly wings, hula skirt, tent—a piece of cloth “soft as silk, green as grass, and cool as a breeze” fuels a day of imaginative play for two children in this lively picture book, first published in Arabic. “With a flick and a click, in just a blink, with no magic stick,” pretend begins immediately after the child’s seamstress mother passes on the textile. While at first the child, portrayed with tan skin, relishes solo play as a cloaked superhero and a “brave Bedouin woman,” the adventures amplify with the arrival of friend Raya, a pale-skinned child whose skepticism about the fabric’s capacity for fun is easily overcome when it transforms her into a princess, then a maharaja ruling “the lands that lay between the mountains of India and the plains of Pakistan,” among others. Najjar’s global storytelling can feel generalizing when detailing the sheet’s cultural versatility, but Shama’s narrative illustrations expressively capture the way the item helps the children to envision entire worlds. Ages 3–8. (Oct.)