Ambreen TariqCritiques

5/5

Great book about being immigrants and new to America. Great book about connecting with family and nature adn enjoying who and what is around you.

Fatima's family goes camping after a long week. This is the first time this immigrant family explores the local state park. Together they get their campsite ready and enjoy traditional foods. Preschool students will love this book. The pictures and story line are fun and exciting.

This picture book is a heartwarming story about an Indian American family who decides to go camping which they describe as an American thing to do. The main character, Fatima, struggles in school and finds camping to be an escape where she doesn't have to worry about the struggles of her grades and not understanding her school work. She finds that skills lie outside the doors of a school house and finds her passion of building fires and putting up tents. This allows Fatima to gain confidence and grows closer to her family.

I enjoyed reading this book a lot and the illustrations were really cool to look at. This book is about a family who moved from India to the U.S. and is going camping for the first time. Fatima, one of the girls in the book, really likes camping because it reminds her of India and she wishes to not go home, as she does not like school due to homework, being teased, etc. This book would be good for primary students because I think they would really enjoy the illustrations and it has good, diverse representation.

Kudos to Ambreen for authoring such a seemingly simple - but with underlying profundity- sharing of her childhood experience of an immigrant striving to assimilate into American culture through the pastime of camping.
You can catch NPR’s interview of her on March 30.
And can follow her on Instagram @brownpeoplecamping

Young Fatima Khazi has had a rough week at school. A classmate corrected her English, a boy pulled her braid, and she didn’t do very well on a math test. But she’s excited to go camping for the first time with her parents and older sister!

I loved this book so much! My husband and I are frequent hikers and we’ve been especially active outdoors during the pandemic while most other options are closed or feel unsafe to us. We used to go camping a lot but my husband decided about five years ago that he’s too old to sleep on the ground and I didn’t argue. So now we “camp” in our RV.

On our hikes and in our campgrounds, I’ve absolutely noticed that there is a distinct lack of diversity among hikers. We’re almost all white. I can only guess why that is, but it’s definitely a thing. Author Ambreen Tariq noticed this disparity too and founded #brownpeoplecamping “to promote greater diversity in our public lands and outdoors community.” What better way to encourage diverse communities to enjoy natural beauty than by introducing children to the idea through a picture book?

Fatima is totally relatable. She feels overshadowed by her smart older sister and she doesn’t always feel like she fits in at school. She’s a little nervous about sleeping in a tent, especially when she and her sister spy a “monster” outside the tent in the night. They laugh the next morning when they see what it was. Every camper has had this experience!

I loved that Ms. Tariq gently shows some immigrant struggles through the school teasing and a brief mention that both of Fatima’s parents work two jobs. She also shows that there are ways to meld typically American experiences with immigrant culture. When Fatima wants to try bacon cooked over the campfire, her father obliges and buys beef bacon from a Halal butcher. And what’s a road trip without songs or snacks? Fatima’s family just happens to enjoy singing Bollywood songs and eating samosas.

The illustrations by Stevie Lewis are charming and so much fun. My husband glanced at my computer while I read this and commented on how much he liked them.

I highly recommend this for all readers and hope that it encourages diverse families to experience the great outdoors.