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

Image retrieved from www.amazon.com

1. Bibliography

Abdel-Fattah, Randa. Does My Head Look Big In This? New York: Orchard Books, 2005. ISBN 9780439919470

2. Plot Summary

Does My Head Look Big In This? is the story of a young Muslim girl on a journey to embrace her identity as a young Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl. Amal lives in a trendy suburb of Melbourne, Australia. After watching a Friends rerun in which Jennifer Aniston has the guts to jump onstage at her ex’s wedding and sing “Copacabana,” Amal is inspired to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time. She wears it to be closer to God, but everyone in her life has a reaction to it - especially everyone at her prep school where she is the only Muslim. Throughout the story, Amal rises above others’ expectations of her to be all she can be. Randa Abdel-Fattah portrays a common journey of faith for young Muslim girls with this light-hearted story of Amal.  

3. Critical Analysis

Amal’s decision to wear the hijab full time is not an easy one. She admits she’s terrified. It’s because of her passion and conviction for Islam that she commits to wearing it. She thinks it will make her feel closer to God “Because it’s pretty hard to walk around with people staring at your ‘towel-head’ and not feel kind of pleased with yourself … That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong and please Him.” It’s Amal’s religion - her desire to please God - that sees her through the prejudice and difficulty she encounters while wearing the hijab. Once she is wearing it full time, she says she never felt so free or so sure of who she is.

As an Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl, Amal has known prejudice and Islamic stereotypes her entire life. She says, “when you’re a non-pork eating, Eid-celebrating Mossie (as in taunting nickname for Muslim, not mosquito) with an unpronounceable last name and a mother who picks you up from school wearing a hijab and Gucci shades, and drives a car with an ‘Islam means peace’ bumper sticker, a quiet existence is impossible.” However, it’s this not-so-quiet existence that has made Amal who she is. She has persevered through the stereotypes and prejudice, and it has made her stronger. It has turned her into a determined young girl. Because of it, she knows she can rise above people’s low expectations like her parents have lectured her. She can be anything she wants to be.

Abdel-Fattah also addresses the misconceptions about Muslims because of Muslim terrorist events in recent years. When terrorists bomb a nightclub in Bali, killing many Australian tourists, the principal of Amal’s prep school gathers students in the auditorium for an assembly. While there, the principal says the words “Islamic massacre” repeatedly, and Amal winces every time she says it, “as though these barbarians somehow belong to my Muslim community.” She says, “These people are aliens to our faith.” Later, the school president asks her to give a speech explaining to everybody why the terrorists did what they did and how Islam justifies it. She makes her point by asking the girl, who is a Christian, to explain why what the Ku Klux Klan did was “textbook Christianity.” She explains that Muslim is merely a label for terrorists. They’re really nutcases who kill people and it has nothing to do with religion.

This book does an excellent job of using Amal’s character to explain to readers many different aspects of Islamic culture. She explains that wearing the hijab full time means wearing it whenever you’re in the presence of males who aren’t immediate family, versus wearing it part time, which means it would be part of an Islamic school uniform or worn to go to the mosque. She describes many of the Arabic foods they eat. Amal’s mom is a wonderful cook and fixes dishes such as mansaf (a Palestinian dish), falafel, hummus, makloba, and fatoosh. Religious holidays are explained and shown by the way Amal’s family celebrates them. Her family fasts for Ramadan, and then they celebrate Eid at the end of Ramadan.

The theme of friendship is prevalent in this book. Amal has two sets of friends. One set is her Islamic friends and the other is school friends. When her Islamic friends are together, they joke about their traditional parents and Muslim stereotypes. When her school friends are together, they talk about body issues, who likes who, and budding romances. Amal is a fun-loving character who always has a good time with her friends while staying true to her Islamic values.

I loved reading this book. It think it has great value for young adults in and out of the classroom, Muslim and non-Muslim. It takes the fear out of the Islamic faith in this post-September 11th world. This book includes everything - culture, religion, stereotypes, prejudice, and in the end perseverance and determination to be everything you can be.

4. Review Excerpts

From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (May 21, 2007): "Using a winning mix of humor and sensitivity, Abdel-Fattah ably demonstrates that her heroine is, at heart, a teen like any other. This debut should speak to anyone who has felt like an outsider for any reason."

From KIRKUS (April 15, 2007): "Wearing the hijab full-time shuts some doors, but opens others for Amal as she emerges a bright, articulate heroine true to herself and her faith. Abdel-Fattah's fine first novel offers a world of insight to post-9/11 readers."

5. Connections

Gather other books written by Randa Abdel-Fattah such as:

• Ten Things I Hate About Me. ISBN 978-0330422741
• Where the Streets Had a Name. ISBN 978-0545172929
• No Sex in the City. ISBN 978-0863567117

Visit Randa Abdel-Fattah’s website at http://www.randaabdelfattah.com/index.asp for an interview with her as well as teacher’s resources for this book.