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Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Why we're reading this: Amal's voice and point of view is one that is not shared often enough. It would do a lot of teens good to experience life from a different cultural perspective. Does My Head Look Big In This? enlightens the reader without preaching and is entertaining to boot.
[close] Amal's voice and point of view is one that is not shared often enough. It would do a lot of teens good to experience life from a different cultural perspective. Does My Head Look Big In This? enlightens the reader without preaching and is entertaining to boot. [close]

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Sep 04, 2007

Navah rated it:

bookshelves: teen

Read in August, 2007

Amal is Palestinian-Australian Muslim girl in eleventh grade at her snooty Melbourne prep school, when she decides that she is ready to wear the hijab, the headscarf, full time. She knows that it’s not going to be easy—she sticks out enough at her school just for being Muslim, and adding the hijab is going to make her a target for people to stare and ask her if she’s a terrorist. But she is sure that it is the right thing for her to do. Amal is smart and sassy and opinionated, and the b...more Amal is Palestinian-Australian Muslim girl in eleventh grade at her snooty Melbourne prep school, when she decides that she is ready to wear the hijab, the headscarf, full time. She knows that it’s not going to be easy—she sticks out enough at her school just for being Muslim, and adding the hijab is going to make her a target for people to stare and ask her if she’s a terrorist. But she is sure that it is the right thing for her to do. Amal is smart and sassy and opinionated, and the book explores not only the experience of a modern hijab-wearing Muslim girl, but also that of Amal’s best friend, whose mother is traditional and wants her daughter to get married at sixteen.

I enjoyed reading this book, for the most part, but there were things that bothered me quite a bit. First of all, Amal talks about the social challenges of the hijab, but never talks about the fact that when you cover your head all the time, it can get hot. It can give you a headache. And it can make your hair flat. She doesn’t really address any of these practical issues.

Also, while it is nice to have a Muslim protagonist to a teen novel, it often feels like Randa Abdel-Fattah has a point she wants to make, and she beats you over the head with it just about as unsubtly as possible. Muslims are not all terrorists. Islam believes in peace, not in blowing people up, and there are crazies in every religion who use extremism. Nice, normal modern Muslims do not condone terrorism nor support it. Also, primitive Islamic customs with a submissive woman who marries at sixteen and has no career or life outside the house is VILLAGE custom, not a tenet of Islam. No really, it’s not—Islam lets a woman go to University and be a professional, modern woman.

Abdel-Fattah beats those messages into your head with a clue-by-four, and it’s kind of irritating. I wanted Amal to feel like a real person—and she sometimes does—but too often, she feels like a vehicle for the author to get her point out. Too preachy and too repetitive.
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Jan 23, 2008

elissa rated it:

bookshelves: australianauthors, my_00s_reads, youngadult

Read in February, 2008

Fills a definite void in the area of novels about contemporary Muslim teens (in Australia, but the setting could have been an American city). Excellent for a first novel, and I hope she writes more. Drags slightly in the middle, but the beginning and end read quickly for me. Filled with insight in to Muslim culture, and some about Islam. I loved Amal's evolving relationship with her elderly Greek neighbor. Reading with adbooks Feb 1st.

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Aug 10, 2009

Chelsi rated it:

bookshelves: pg-library-ya

Read in June, 2009

This book was a wonderful, easy read. I didn't want to put it down. The experiences Amal goes through were very interesting, and gave me a better perspective of what Muslim people in this country go through. Especially after September 11th.

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Mar 05, 2008

Hollie rated it:

Read in August, 2008

recommends it for: Everyone

I absolutely loved this book! I loved the way that the author created empathy between the reader and the main character and how she portrayed Amal, a girl who decides to make some unpopular decisions based on her devotion to and faith in her God. I learned things about the Muslim faith that I never knew from this books and I finished it a better person. The only thing I did not like about this book is the foul language. That said, it's pretty mild. Brilliant book!!!!!

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Jan 16, 2008

Kate rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, ya

Read in January, 2008

A Muslim 'Looking for Alibrandi' that is a little too sappy and sentimental for my tastes. Although the character's passion for her religion is infectious, I do think it was a little too long and repetitive. I also felt that too much of the text is devoted to defending her choice and religious freedom and this eventually made for dull reading.

Nevertheless, offers an alternative perspective and is thus a useful and enlightening read for Australian teens.

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Jul 10, 2008

Katrina rated it:

bookshelves: read-in-2008, young-adult

Read in July, 2008

Amal's voice and point of view is one that is not shared often enough. It would do a lot of teens good to experience life from a different cultural perspective. Does My Head Look Big In This? enlightens the reader without preaching and is entertaining to boot. This will be a book that I will recommend to my students in the future.

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