Think back to when you were a child and you picked up a book and began to read and noticed that the illustrations looked like the place where you lived, or the setting was your city and you can picture all the places the characters go.  There is a special kind of magic that takes hold when a child can see their experience reflected back from the pages of a book.  

Salma the Syrian Chef by Danny Ramadan and Anna Bron is a four course meal of perfection.  An incredible mirror book for the many refugees coming to Canada in the last number of years and an exceptional window book for those born in Canada to understand the challenges faced by newcomers. The pages are filled with different families and people from all corners of the world. It’s a celebration of diversity.

The appetizer is the story’s setting at the Welcome Centre in Vancouver.  Danny Ramadan, surely drawing from his own experience as a newcomer to Canada, shares with his readers the feeling of arriving in Vancouver and those early days of being totally immersed in a place that is so very different from where he came.  Vancouver is rainy and colder than Syria and Salma sees her Mom doesn’t smile as much anymore.  Learning English is difficult but it’s even more challenging to not have friends who can speak the same language.

The main course is the community of people around Salma who help lift her spirits and who remind each other of the things they miss from where they were born.  Food is a huge part of the human experience and can evoke many memories of family and home.  Each of the new friends Salma meets misses food from where they grew up and have nostalgic feelings about the food they miss.  Salma wants to make her mom smile by making foul shami, her favourite dish, so she asks for help and receives it from many other people living at the Welcome Centre.  It makes her feel a bit more at home her in her new country.

The dessert is the smile on Salma’s mother’s face when she sees how Salma worked so hard to make her favourite food and the friends who all helped her accomplish her task.  Salma rediscovers that home is whenever her mother is near and her mother reminds Salma she is always at home in her smile.

Danny Ramadan uses some of the most descriptive text I have read in a picture book.  His beautiful smilies and metaphors colour the text with life and help the reader really get to the heart of how Salma is feeling in her new home. I really enjoy Paul Covello’s design choices. I appreciate the size of the book, it’s big, perfect for sharing as a read aloud with groups of children. I love how the colour palette of the illustrations changes depending on how Salma is feeling in the story.  

Anna Bron’s illustrations are a delightful representation of Salma’s life.  Drawing from a colour palette reminiscent of the Middle East, with beautiful tile motifs bordering the illustrations, they are a picture perfect representation of everyday life in a new city with a remembrance of what was left behind.  

I’m certain this book will find its way into many classrooms and homes and will provide comfort to endless numbers of newcomers to Canada.