The Middle East is one of the oldest crossroads on earth, a place of many countries and faiths where some of the world’s first cities and written stories began. It is also, in a lot of children’s books, simply home: a grandfather’s house on the coast of Oman, or a girl in Riyadh who wants nothing more than a bicycle. Whether your family has roots in the region or your kid is just curious about a part of the world they mostly hear about in the news, these books offer something warmer and truer.
We’ve gathered our favorite children’s books from across the Middle East and sorted them by age. There are sturdy bilingual board books in Arabic and Farsi, folk tales that have been told for a thousand years, and poetry and graphic memoir for older readers ready for something with more weight. Pick a few and you have the start of a real shelf.
Board Books and First Words
The youngest explorers can meet the region through a few first words in Arabic and Farsi.
My Face Book (Arabic/English) (Arabic Edition)
My First Bilingual Book–Home (English–Arabic) (English and Arabic Edition)
My First Bilingual Book-Fruit (English-Farsi)
These three sturdy board books are made for the littlest hands. My Face Book fills its pages with photos of real babies making every expression a baby can make, labeled in Arabic and English. My First Bilingual Book: Home names everyday objects around the house in Arabic and English, while the Fruit edition does the same in English and Farsi. Bright, simple, and genuinely useful, they are a lovely way to bring a new script into a young child’s day.
Folk Tales and Legends
Some of the world’s most beloved stories were first told here, and these two have lasted for centuries.
Here is a Palestinian tale with real mischief in it. In Tunjur, Tunjur, Tunjur, a woman who longs for a child has her prayers answered in an unexpected form: a little talking cooking pot. The pot rolls off into the world to seek her fortune, and she is charming and a bit of a rascal, so her mother has to teach her right from wrong. Margaret Read MacDonald tells it with a bouncy, chantable refrain that kids pick up instantly.
No collection from this part of the world is complete without the frame story that holds a thousand others. In Arabian Nights, the clever Sheherazade saves her own life by telling the sultan a spellbinding story each night and stopping just before dawn, so he has to keep her alive to hear the ending. Andrew Lang’s classic retelling opens the door to Aladdin, Sinbad, and Ali Baba. A wonderful read-aloud, one tale at a time.
Real Lives and Traditions
These books introduce kids to real people and living traditions, from a thousand-year-old scientist to a family’s pilgrimage.
Long before modern hospitals, a brilliant Persian doctor named Ibn Sina was figuring out how the body works and writing a medical encyclopedia that Europe would use for six hundred years. The Amazing Discoveries of Ibn Sina by Fatima Sharafeddine tells his story simply and vividly, and it is the kind of book that surprises a kid into realizing how much of modern science began in the Middle East. Great for a curious young reader or a school report.
Going to Mecca by Na’ima B. Robert follows a London family as they travel to the holy city for the Hajj, the great pilgrimage at the heart of Islam. The rhythmic text moves with the crowds around the Kaaba, and it offers children (of any faith) a warm, first-hand feel for what the journey means to the millions who make it. A respectful, beautiful window into a central part of many families’ lives.
You may know the three gifts of the Nativity, but probably not where one of them came from. The Third Gift by Linda Sue Park follows a boy and his father in the desert as they harvest the precious resin called myrrh, drop by drop, and sell it to a mysterious trio of travelers. It is a quiet, gorgeous story that gives a familiar gift a real place and a real pair of working hands. Lovely around the holidays or any time.
Everyday Kids, Real Places
Sometimes the best window on a place is one ordinary kid who wants one ordinary thing.
Eleven-year-old Wadjda lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and she wants a green bicycle more than anything, even though girls in her city are not really supposed to ride. The Green Bicycle follows her funny, stubborn campaign to get one, and along the way it opens up daily life for a girl growing up in Saudi Arabia. Spirited and full of heart, it is a great pick for a middle-grade reader who roots for an underdog.
When young Aref learns his family is leaving Oman for Michigan, he cannot imagine saying goodbye to his grandfather Sidi and the coast he loves. The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye spends its last days before the move with the two of them, collecting stones and watching sea turtles, and it treats a child’s grief over leaving home with enormous tenderness. A perfect read for any kid facing a big move.
For Older Readers: Poetry, Memoir, and a Refugee’s Journey
When a reader is ready for more, these three carry them somewhere real.
Stepping Stones tells a refugee family’s journey out of a war-torn homeland and across dangerous seas, and it does it without a single word of story: the pictures are made entirely from arranged stones by the Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr, with the text in both English and Arabic. It is a striking, quietly devastating book that helps a child understand what it means to have to leave everything and start again. Handle it together.
For a teen reader, 19 Varieties of Gazelle gathers the poems Naomi Shihab Nye has written across a lifetime about being Arab-American, about Jerusalem and the West Bank, about family and the small daily things that hold people together. Her voice is warm and clear-eyed, and this is the book we would hand a young person who wants to feel the region rather than just read facts about it.
A Game for Swallows is Zeina Abirached’s graphic memoir of a single evening in Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war, when she and her little brother wait with the neighbors for their parents to make it home through the shelling. Her bold black-and-white art turns a frightening night into a story about a whole building becoming one family. A powerful choice for an older reader who loves graphic novels.
Keep Traveling
Give a child a shelf of the Middle East and they get more than headlines. They get a mischievous talking pot and a grandfather watching sea turtles with a boy who does not want to leave. Start with a folk tale and one ordinary kid, and let your reader find their own way in.