A few months ago, I was asked by a trade interviewer if I thought it was important for children to read international literature. The question left me speechless for a moment, in the same way I lose my words when I am asked if I’m ever going to start writing “real books”, and not just “children’s books”. I had to really think about not only how to formulate my answer, but to understand what it was about the question that left me so confused.

As an Arab who grew up in five countries and has lived in seven, who’s been writing picture books for twelve years and raising children for sixteen, some things seem obvious to me. One of those things is that books aimed at young ones are often books for everyone, and that grown-ups would be better off treating them as such. The other is that the word “international”, much like the word “diverse”, risks centering one demographic and othering everyone else. International in relation to whom? While I do understand the intention and often, the need to use such labels, in a world that is smaller and exponentially more connected than the one we grown-ups knew when we were little, what exactly do we mean when we classify a book, or a category of books, as international, as diverse?

When I, a Lebanese living in Berlin, read a picture book about the Haenyeo of South Korea, about the olive trees of Palestine, about a Jewish child escaping persecution during WWII or one growing up in communist Prague, about a Japanese couple falling in love in a US internment camp, I never think of myself reading an international book for children; I am simply reading a story, one that can teach me something I didn’t know, that can expand my world view, that can offer me a window into another world, regardless of whom the story is about or where it’s taking place. Isn’t that what so many of us authors set out to do when we write?

When I wrote Lost Words: An Armenian Story of Survival of Hope, illustrated by Sona Avedikian, my aim was to reach children far and wide and tell them about the Armenian Genocide. And while I did want Armenian children like mine to see themselves and their history represented in the pages of a picture book, I also wanted children who aren’t Armenian to learn about this genocide that wiped out 80% of a population, and yet has consistently been left out of the history books taught in classrooms.

When I wrote Mariam’s Dream: The Story of Mariam Al-Shaar and Her Food Truck of Hope, illustrated by the same talented artist, I wasn’t only speaking to Lebanese children, or Palestinian children, but to all children, to tell them the story of an incredible woman who is unstoppable when she puts her mind to something. And again, my hope was to allow Arab children, specifically those who have been denied their identity, to feel seen, but I also wanted children who aren’t Arab to read a story about persistence, about strength, and the amazing things that happen when you work for your community. Couldn’t everyone benefit from a story like this? Couldn’t anyone, no matter where they are, or where they’re from, or their age, be inspired and moved by someone like Mariam?

As our societies become less monolithic, so should our literature and our bookshelves. The first time I saw myself authentically reflected in the pages of a US-published picture book was in 2020 when Ten Ways to Hear Snow (Cathy Camper, Ken Park) was published. It was the first time I wasn’t seeing some distorted image of what someone who most likely has never met an Arab, thinks an Arab might look and sound and act like. I felt seen, represented, humanized. My fear and reluctance of defining certain books and stories as “international” or “diverse” of even simply “for children”, is these definitions risk placing the most important stories in boxes that become inaccessible or uninteresting to so many who could stand to be changed by these books. We’ve seen the long-lasting repercussions of male dominated literature that continue to be obvious in the stories being written today, and even in the imaginations of little ones, and I worry these often well-meaning classifications might reinforce the othering of anyone that falls outside the “default”.

While I do understand the need to use labels such as these in a reality where defaultism—whether USian, or male, or white—still has a strong grip on the biggest children’s publishers and market, the diversification of the literature coming out in recent years gives me hope that we are heading towards a future where the demographic makeup of the industry more accurately reflects the world we live in, where diversity in literature is the default, and a book can simply be a book. I dream of the day where our stories are approached with the open-mindedness and open-heartedness that allows people to more than simply understand the complex beauty of our world, but to fully embrace it.

My answer to the question I was asked is yes. Children, as well as their grown-ups, absolutely need to read books that offer them stories they didn’t know, about people they didn’t know. Because if we ever hope to live in a world that is more just and compassionate, where everyone is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve, this, I feel, is the only way to make that happen.