The Proudest Blue

Standing out from your peers, especially when you are young, can sometimes be difficult to navigate. My siblings and I went to a Jewish Day School when we were younger, and then transferred over to the public school for middle and high school. My brother was the only boy in the school to wear a kippah (Jewish male head covering). I’m sure he was teased by some kids, but for the most part, I think he was ultimately respected for being able to explain why he wore it, and for being his own person. We are only 21 months apart, and some of the guys he played football with were also my friends, and they told me that they always liked that my brother Josh never backed down from what he believed in, that he proudly wore a symbol that differentiated him. The Proudest Blue is a similar story:  of deriving empowerment from wearing a symbol of your faith. 

Faizah narrates the story, and she is clearly enamored of her sister. I have to admit that I am enamored of the children’s mother. Her messages speak to the power of sisterhood and of female community. Faizah absorbs her mother’s messages, and then witnesses her sister’s strength. This is a powerful family dynamic, and one worth emulating.

Some people won’t understand your hijab,… But if you understand who you are, one day they will too.

 And my favorite:

Don’t carry around the hurtful words that others say. Drop them. They are not yours to keep. They belong only to those who said them.

These words speak to a philosophy of cultural and female empowerment. As the author indicates in her note, her goal for writing this story was so that other Muslim girls could see themselves reflected in a children’s story. This is behind so much of Good Trouble For Kids’ mission: supporting writers and illustrators who are changing the literary canon by drawing and writing about children who have too often not been depicted in children’s literature. 

It is worth sharing with your children a little more about Ibtihaj Muhammad’s personal story. She was the first American to compete in the Olympics in a hijab. In 2017, she worked with Mattel on releasing the first Barbie doll wearing a hijab (who also bears her image!) Muhammad broke other barriers as well by choosing to compete in fencing, a sport that has been historically white. The New York Times just recently published a story about race barriers being broken in cycling, another predominantly white sport. We need to focus on these stories and insure they are shared with children of color as often as possible, in much the same way we need to insure that girls have as many role models as they can of women breaking the so-called glass ceiling. Kamala Harris is certainly an example of that: first Black, first Asian-American, first woman Vice President!

Nobel Prize winning women’s educational activist, Malala Yousafzai, did not wear a burqa in Pakistan, but she does wear a head covering. In the name of secularism, France passed a law in 2004 banning the wearing of religious symbols in schools. In 2019, Quebec passed a similar law banning the wearing of religious symbols (hijab, kippah, cross, turban) by public servants. The Facing History and Ourselves Project addresses this controversy and offers multiple articles and questions for further discussion. It is well-worth looking at.