The Holiday Break Reading Challenge: Create-A-Cover

Today's challenge for The Holiday Break Reading Challenge is one of my favorites. I love to make fake book covers! It actually helps me to think of all the book possibilities there are...Now, if I could only write one! That would be cool.

Here's the cover I came up with after following the instructions laid out by Ms. Karin the Librarian:

Souri and her family emigrated to the United States from Iran when she was just ten years old. She loves her friends and her life in America, but is thrown into an unforeseen battle between the two cultures when she decides to wear the traditional headscarf, the hijab. 


Though most of her American friends and her family are supportive, her school is not. They have a policy against wearing any type of head covering in class. To protest this policy, Souri takes a vow of silence and will not speak until the school amends their policy. 


Through this period of silence, Souri has an opportunity to think, observe, and reflect on what truly matters to her. Ultimately, she finds that keeping silent can leads to a discovery of something that she didn't know she had--a voice.

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What do you think? My description reminds me of Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah, but I think it veers into a more political/ protest-y direction with the whole keeping silent thing. I actually had a student who was originally from Iran a bunch of years ago, and know that she struggled to keep the two cultures (home and school) in check. She's all graduated college and doing wonderfully now, but I think of the talks she and I had about the conflicting values of home and school often. Anyway, I think I'd read this book...