Six-year-old Bilal introduces his friends to his favorite dish-daal!-in this charming picture book that showcases the value of patience, teamwork, community, and sharing.

Six-year-old Bilal is excited to help his dad make his favorite food of all-time: daal! The slow-cooked lentil dish from South Asia requires lots of ingredients and a whole lot of waiting. Bilal wants to introduce his friends to daal. They've never tried it! As the day goes on, the daal continues to simmer, and more kids join Bilal and his family, waiting to try the tasty dish. And as time passes, Bilal begins to wonder: Will his friends like it as much as he does?

This debut picture book by Aisha Saeed, with charming illustrations by Anoosha Syed, uses food as a means of bringing a community together to share in each other's family traditions.

 

This book has been graded for interest at 4+ years.

There are 40 pages in this book. This book was published 2019 by Simon & Schuster .

Anoosha Syed is a Pakistani-Canadian illustrator and character designer for animation, based in Texas. She graduated with a BFA in illustration at Ceruleum: Ecole d'arts Visuels in Lausanne, Switzerland. Bilal Cooks Daal is her first picture book. Aisha Saeed also wrote Written in the Stars , and is a Pakistani-American writer, teacher, and attorney. She has been featured on MTV, the Huffington Post , NBC and the BBC, and her writings have appeared in publications including the journal ALAN and the Orlando Sentinel . As one of the founding members of the much talked about We Need Diverse Books Campaign, she is helping change the conversation about diverse books. Aisha lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and sons.