You can find Huda at her website www.Hudafahmy.com.

Our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.

This week we talk to Huda Fahmy, a graphic novelist whose 4th book Huda F Cares? was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. Her book focuses on a teenage Muslim girl named Huda who takes a road trip in the family’s station wagon from Michigan to Florida to visit Disneyworld with her parents and many sisters. There she grapples with wanting to fit in with her peers but also wanting to stay true to her family and her Muslim religion with issues like wearing her hijab and praying in public.

The character Huda in her book is based on the author’s experience growing up in an Egyptian family that immigrated to the US. Huda talks about her love of comics and how she picked up English in part by reading Garfield comic books. Huda began writing graphic novels at the age of 30 when two of her sisters encouraged her to turn her essays of Muslim American life into illustrated stories.

Books mentioned in This Episode:

1- Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy

2- Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy

3- Yes, I'm Hot in This by Huda Fahmy

4- Huda F Wants To Know by Huda Fahmy

5- That Can be Arranged by Huda Fahmy

6- Murder by Degrees by Rita Mukerji

7- Hide by Tracy Clark

8- Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe

9- Erasure by Percival Everett

10- Mexikid by Pedro Martin

11- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

12- Brave by Svetlana Chmakova

13- It Won't Always Be Like This by Malaka Gharib

14- Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali

15- All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

16- A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

17- As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

18- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Juno Diaz

19- Hidden Systems by Dan Nott

20- The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

21- Checkmate by Ali Hazelwood

22- Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

23- The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni

24- The Falconer by Elizabeth May

Shows/Films mentioned--

1- Poor Things (2023)

2- American Fiction (2023)

3- The Old Man and the Pool (Netflix 2023)