Tell Me What Happened

This small, quiet book is beautifully illustrated by Paul Rufe. It demonstrates the power of a sister, a mother, and a teacher have to stop schoolyard bullies and teach them a lesson about "where we all come from" in this nation of immigrants.

When a Syrian family moves to America, they have high hopes for a peaceful life with no more bombs and no more war. The mother, Noor, is upset when she discovers that her fifth-grade son, Bilal, is beaten up by classmates each day as he walks home from school with his sister, Aisha. It is Aisha, a fourth-grader at the same school, who witnesses the bullying and tells their mother about it. Noor struggles with how she can stop this violence, but eventually finds her courage and her voice. She grabs the hands of her boy and girl, walks to school with them, and enters a faculty meeting where she tells a roomful of teachers what has been happening. They sit in shocked silence, but the determined mother finishes her story and takes her children home. Changes occur the next day when the teacher gives her students an assignment that shows how people come from all over the globe, and how each family has a story about its history, its roots, and its customs.

We may speak different languages and wear different clothing, but we are more alike than we are different.

Rufe's illustrations carry the theme. McDaris ends her book with questions for the readers about what they have discovered and what happens when we truly listen to each other's stories.

(Reviewed by Beth Thames, Huntsville, Alabama Branch for The Pen Woman, Winter, 2022, p. 24)

Beautiful hard cover, colorful, descriptive illustrations, interest-capturing additions (haiku, musical score, artistic wordless pages, discovery questions page, and more) make this book readable and interesting on many levels. I highly recommend it to children, teachers, school libraries, immigrants, and anyone at the interface of education and human resources.

- Marian Moore Lewis, Ph.D., is a research scientist, naturalist, photographer, and author of Southern Sanctuary: A Naturalist's Walk through the Seasons.

Tell Me What Happened by Sara W. McDaris is a book for children in grades four through six, their parents, youth leaders, counsellors and teachers, as well as the children and families who come to the United States from other countries. The book offers insights into difficulties a child, who is different—whether by ethnicity, appearance, dress, faith, or color of skin—may experience when entering a new school. In this case, a boy named Bilal and his sister Aisha, arrive in the United States at the beginning of a new school year—Bilal is in fifth grade and Aisha is in fourth. The children and their mother, Noor, are refugees from Syria. They have fled the terrible abuses and hardships caused by war there. Everything in the United States is unfamiliar and frightening to them. Without a familiar place of worship and not knowing anyone, all three strive to find their way to fit in. When Bilal comes home from school with his clothes in tatters, bruised, scratched and with a bloody nose, Noor asks him and Aisha to tell her what happened. Aisha explains that every day after school, boys attack, taunt and beat Bilal. Noor realizes something must be done. Although it would be against custom in Syria for a woman to confront a person in authority, Noor courageously marches her two children back to the school and into the room where teachers are meeting. With directness, honesty, and resolve, Noor shows them exactly what has happened to her son after school all seven days of this new school year. Now aware that Bilal is being bullied, his teacher takes action.

An especially appealing aspect of this book is how the teacher enlists class participation to make Bilal’s situation relevant to the students. She gives children an assignment to talk with their parents and ask what country their family came from originally. The next day, when students tell the class what they learned, the teacher uses maps to show the countries where students’ ancestors were from, and thus makes geography interesting and relevant to the students (and to young readers). When Bilal describes his life and the terrible conditions he endured in Syria, students become interested and learn a lesson in compassion. Tolerance begins, bullying stops, friendships between Bilal and the other students develop.

The book has many attention-getting inclusions. For instance, the illustrator, Paul Rufe, shows the dawning of understanding among characters by painting all of them with only one eye early in the book; later, as they gain insight and compassion and accept one another, they are portrayed with both eyes. Two of the book’s four wordless pages illustrate how the loving support of their mother allow Bilal and Aisha to feel hopeful about their future and able to be more aware of their environment: trees, a jay bird, and the beauty of the world around them. Even the cat’s expressions and positions set meaning and story mood. In addition to the book’s beautiful illustrations, McDaris’ haiku, stretching across the inside front cover, hints at the satisfactory conclusion. Two other wordless pages depict events presented in McDaris’ haiku. The haiku is also set to music (with musical score on the inside of the back cover). These extra touches propel the book into more than just story. They entice readers to explore and discover with deeper awareness, and they trick them to look for meaning—thus increasing curiosity about story, poem form, and musical mood setting.

McDaris has woven an excellent account of intolerance transformed into empathy, understanding and tolerance. Tell Me What Happened is a composite of gifts that can stimulate young readers to think, explore and seek deeper meaning as they ponder a haiku, discover messages in the illustrations, and examine words and notes in “Blue Jay’s Flight” inside the back cover; and, to simply enjoy the experience of reading this unusual, entertaining, educational, remarkable, and delightfully thought-provoking book.