Book Review: A "Multicultural" Book That Actually Incorporate Multiple Cultures

Naamah And The Ark At Night by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the tradition of the best bedtime stories, Naamah feels comfortably familiar before the first reading is done. This "lullaby" uses the ghazal, an Islamic poetic form, to create a gentle rocking reminiscent of a ship at sea or a parent's arms.

Meade's paper collages use a heavy card stock to create a dimensionality, and the simple shapes allude to the obscuring shadows or backlighting moon, even when watercolors fill in greater detail.

With the word "night" ending each line, and internal rhymes across the couplets, this book would be great to read aloud together with the most beginning ELL student, or to examine the oddities of English spelling with others. It also has that exotic-yet-comfortable atmosphere which many students respond well to when they are still adjusting to a move.

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