This is the story of a naughty child called Faisal, or Fasool as he is better known by his group of misbehaving friends.
Every time this little Emirati misbehaves – when he’s bullying the class nerd, for instance, or feigning illness to skip school, or being loud at the cinema with his friends – he gets punished by reading books and then summarising them.
"I wanted a book in Arabic that is both fun to read and educational, but in a subtle way, as children and youth don't like preachy books," says Jamal Al Shehhi, who co-wrote and published Yuomeyat Moshagheb or diary of a naughty kid, which is targeted at children age 6 and above.
Written in simple Arabic, peppered with Emirati dialect and commonly used words in the UAE, the book is designed in a notebook-like format, with elaborate sketches of the characters and their adventures, similar to the popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
“It is similar in design, but not in content. The characters and their stories are uniquely UAE stories, and children growing up here will identify with it, as will the parents,” says Al Shehhi, who studied anthropology and education in the United States. “I like to take the best from the West and then we add to it our own Arabic and Emirati touch and values.”
Dressed in a kandura, Fasool is the main character together with Mansour, an Arab expat boy obsessed with video games; Jamal, another Emirati, who likes to spend time with the elders; and Hussein, another Arab expat who is spoilt and believes money can solve any problem. They run around causing havoc wherever they go.
“There aren’t many good or fun books for children between the ages of 6 to 10 or 12, with most of those on the market either too childish or too mature for them,” he says. “And not all good stories have to be fairy tales.”
Another character who will soon get her own book is Fasool’s sister Malak, or Mimi. She’s a tattletale and loves to tell their parents about her brother’s misadventures. With her two long braided pigtails, mischievous Mimi will be the hero of the third book in the series and there are plans to translate all of them into English soon.
“You get to see how an Emirati family lives and how the children and the parents interact with each other,” Al Shehhi explains, adding that he hopes the books will make reading more appealing.
“Reading is not viewed as cool, and so we are trying to make it cool and help our children maintain their Arabic through well-designed and well-written books in Arabic as there aren’t that many good ones.”
The books are co-written with Mohammed Khamis, the author of Kingdom of Scaba in English and several other books. The books are illustrated by the Emirati caricaturist and comedy writer Khaled Al Jabri, whose work appears in Al Rouya newspaper. "I wanted to use the simplest drawings and art that anyone at any age can look at and understand," Al Jabri says.
“One of the great challenges of being a caricature artist is allowing the image to speak volumes in the littlest possible space and least possible words,” he says.
You can spot Al Jabri’s artwork by his trademark cat, a fluffy white creature with a patch of orange on its cheek that appears somewhere in all his sketches.
He believes that local caricaturists are in short supply. “Once it was quite popular in the Middle East – through a caricature, you can touch upon sensitive topics without actually getting into trouble as no one can actually say: you wrote that or said that. It is all open to interpretation.”
The two authors and the artist all have children. “They can be the most critical,” Al Jabri laughs.
Alsulaimani and Al Shehhi, who is also the president of the Emirates Publishers Association, based many of Fasool’s adventures and those of his friends on their own childhood memories.
“We were all hyper children, and we were always outdoors playing football or some game. It is very different today for children. They spend too much time on computers, video games and phones or iPads,” he says.
“We are hoping Fasool and friends will inspire them and teach them to be both respectful of the rules and of others, but at the same time, inspire them to be children again. To be naughty as they can be.”
Rym Ghazal is a senior features writer at The National.
