Dahling, If You Luv Me, Would You Please, Please Smile
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A Young Adult Novel by Rukhsana Khan
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Published by Stoddart Kids
206 pg, Paperback
$8.95 USD / $9.95 CDN
ISBN 0-7737-6016-4
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AR Quiz No. 41552 EN Fiction
IL: MG - BL: 4.0 - AR Pts:
7.0
AR Quiz Types: RP
Rating: 
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A young Pakistani-Canadian girl finds that
trying to please her peers isn't worth the effort.
- WINNER of the Manitoba Young Reader's Choice Honour Award
- Shortlisted for the 2000 Red Maple Award (O.L.A)
- Shortlisted for the 2000 Ruth Schwartz Award (O.A.C/C.B.A)
"Zainab feels like the perennial outsider at her
Canadian school: she doesn't have the requisite expensive brand-name
clothes, she's one of only two students of Indian ancestry there (and
the other, also in grade eight, is a Hindu who funds Muslim Zainab's
acceptance of meat-eating disgusting), and she's without friends . . .
What is compelling and original here is the treatment of Zainab's faith
and its relevance to her daily life: without being preachy or
ham-handedly informational, Khan depicts Zainab as a devout girl in a
devout family who both embraced and questions the tenets of her faith.
There's a well-handled complexity in the scenes where Zainab submits to
the will of her bossy older sister and uncomfortably listens to
catalogues of fault; the book makes it clear that older sister Layla
takes a most irreligious pleasure in bossing her younger sister but also
gives credence to Zainab's contemplation of her character . . . the
family intensity will engage readers, and proud and stubborn Zainab is
worth knowing."
-Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books-
". . . Zainab's sister goes even further, keeping
an alphabetized list of Zainab's faults in Dahling, if You Luv Me, Would
You Please, Please Smile, a debut novel by the author of two previous
picture books, Rukhsana Khan . . . But Zainab's grueling
'self-improvement' sessions with her pious, domineering sister are
nothing compared to her problems at school. The only Muslim and one of
two 'Indians' in her class, Zainab is dying to fit in. But she doesn't
wear the right clothes; she can't look right; and when she's asked to
direct the class play, the in crowd won't take her seriously. Not until
disaster strikes does Zainab find the wisdom and courage to stand up for
her friend, herself, and her own cultural tradition . . . elements in
this novel show wonderful warmth, humour and complexity. Layla's
self-righteous criticisms of Zainab are so extravagant they're funny,
and Zainab's growing capacity to argue back, text for religious text, is
comic and invigorating. Zainab's feeling of marginalization and the
difficulties of her friendship with a Hindu girl are believable and
enlightening -- particularly so, perhaps, for readers who don't know
what it's like to be a visible outsider."
-The Toronto Star-
"Dahling, if You Luv Me,
Would You Please, Please Smile is award-winning author Rukhsana Khan's
first novel for young adults. The story of Zainab, a young Muslim
Canadian works at more levels than one . . . In the end, it is about
Zainab finding her place in the sun."
-Desi News-