Ramadan in 2022 is not only a time of fasting, prayer and reflection. Today's generation of Muslims decorate for Ramadan, put up Ramadan trees and exchange presents. It's a joyous time of family togetherness and celebration. Talha and Rahama Alvi have created a children's book, The Ramadan Tree, that demystifies Ramadan and Islamic culture for kids, with adults along for the ride. Talha did most of the writing while Rahama, a graphic artist, did the many gorgeous illustrations. She's also a public school art teacher and encountered questions about Ramadan from her students. Both are passionate about spreading the word that Muslim families are part of our community and their cultural and religious traditions are part of what Jimmy Breslin called "the great melting pot."
Ramadan in 2022 is not only a time of fasting, prayer and reflection. Today's generation of Muslims decorate for Ramadan, put up Ramadan trees and exchange presents. It's a joyous time of family togetherness and celebration. Talha and Rahama Alvi have created a children's book, The Ramadan Tree, that demystifies Ramadan and Islamic culture for kids, with adults along for the ride. Talha did most of the writing while Rahama, a graphic artist, did the many gorgeous illustrations. She's also a public school art teacher and encountered questions about Ramadan from her students. Both are passionate about spreading the word that Muslim families are part of our community and their cultural and religious traditions are part of what Jimmy Breslin called "the great melting pot."
:00 Music up and under
Hi and welcome to the Independent Author podcast. I’m Tom Kranz.
Today we meet a young married couple who have collaborated on a children’s book that, in my opinion, is just as much for adults. As Muslims, they saw a need to tell the story of Ramadan and Islam in the language of children, who often have many questions. The book’s publication coincides with Ramadan and is called The Ramadan Tree. The authors are Talha Alvi, a programmer, and his wife Rahama, a graphic artist and art teacher. They did the writing together while Rahama did the illustrations.
:58 Tom Kranz
And Talha and Rahama join me right now. Thank you so much for joining me here. It happens to be Good Friday here in central, New Jersey. You guys are home for the day. I presume?
Rahama and Talha Alvi
We're very happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Tom Kranz
Oh, of course, this is great. So you wrote this book together, at least that's the impression I got. It says written by both of you, The Ramadan Tree. And you know, I'm embarrassed to say this, but I learned more about Ramadan and the vocabulary by reading your 20-page book than in the first 67 years of my life. You know, for the religion that's the second-largest religion in the world, Islam. It's just amazing to me how much you know ignorance there is about it in the United States, you know. So is that why you decided to write this? Or was it really more a kid thing or a combination of the two and definitely, a combination of the two?
1:49 Rahama Alva
It was definitely a combination of the two. So, I teach in the Scotch Plains-Fanwood school district, an elementary teacher. And last year, I wanted to teach the kids about Ramadan and I love teaching them about topics through books. I feel like it's a very easy way. They see the pictures they, you know, the language is very understandable for them. But I couldn't really find something that catered to that in a way that I wanted to teach them. The was, you know, there was like partial understanding of it, but not like a holistic understanding, or there was some vocabulary, but the vocabulary wasn't explained. So that's when I thought hey, why not do this myself? So that's kind of where the idea came about.
Tom Kranz
I see. And you are an art teacher.
Rahama Alvi
Yes.
Tom Kranz
Okay, so they obviously haven't hit the art curriculum in the Scotch Plains-Fanwood school district with cutbacks yet. Hope they never do. And Talha, you work in IT and tech. Tell just briefly what you do in English, please.
2:52 Talha Alvi
So, as you said, I work in tech, I work as a programmer as a day job. But I went to college, Rutgers University and majored in English. So, I've always had a love of it from back in high school and, you know, even reading Shakespeare's plays, which other kids were like, what is this? I love the language, and I just love how, you know. It sounds weird when you relate the two things, right, tech and English because you're like, what do they really have in common? But essentially, it's all just the process of logically putting together words that try to, like, achieve a goal or to try to like make sense of something.
Tom Kranz
That's basic communication. I mean it's applicable to pretty much everything we do and in the industries I've worked in, it's probably the biggest single weakness in every place I've ever worked. When people make assumptions and they don't talk, you know. So anyway I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Talha Alvi
So, that's a great point because even in my work, I've noticed the team is most successful when we're all talking to each other and sharing ideas. So yeah, it's just a basic human precept like, you know, when we communicate and we work together towards building something like, you know, we make something. So in this case, you know, that communicating and working on this project--
4:09 Rahama Alvi
--which definitely had its challenges.
Tom Kranz
Oh, really? No kidding! I'm sure it did. So I'm gonna read briefly from your, about the author's page. You gonna have to send me the photograph by the way because it's so great. So, it says Rahama and Talha Alvi are recently married and have started their life together in New Jersey. Rahama has been a visual art and design teacher for seven years. She started her career in Queens. Are you from New York?
Rahama Alvi
Yes.
Tom Kranz
And now teaches in Scotch, Plains, New Jersey. Talha is a software engineer with a passion for writing. This book has been a dream come true for him. So is this the first thing that you actually sat down and said, damn it, I'm gonna write a book now?
Talha Alvi
Since I got into programming and IT, I have kind of I kind of pushed it aside. It was was one of those little regrets that always like, you know, you always kind of feel deep down that you're like, man wish I could get to it. I wish I could get to it. And to Rahama's credit, she motivated me and kind of pushed me because sometimes you have this dream but you always think oh man, I can't do it. Then she brought up the idea that Amazon actually makes it very easy to spread your ideas. So having her tell me about that and then kind of push me, sometimes too much.
5:30 Tom Kranz
So, she pushed you to write. Then this brings me to the next question I have, which is, did you write to her pictures or did, Rahama did you do your artwork based on what he wrote?
Rahama Alvi
It was a little bit of both? I think that I started with some pages that he kind of designed his words around, but then I didn't have all the illustrations. There were still things that were missing story-wise and he said, well, I think you're going to need more pages because this doesn't make sense. It's not flowing properly. We need a page here, you need a page there. You might need to draw something to tie this, you know, topic in. And so, I started with some illustrations that kind of inspired the words, and then we kind of built it off of that. And then I started to build it off of his words.
Tom Kranz
Okay. So I want to know exactly what you both have day jobs. You know, while I was working. I basically wrote sometimes, I actually stopped working at my desk at work and actually started writing at two in the afternoon. Don't tell anybody. I think they know by now. But we end up writing, at least I did, nights weekends and, you know, a half-hour here, an hour here. How exactly did you guys accomplish that?
6:50 Rahama Alvi
So it was for us, I did my lunch hour. I think it was a little bit during that. And then the collaborative portion, we both did kind of just sitting in bed and, you know, after work and instead of watching TV or I guess going out as much as we should have.
Talha Alvi
Yea, we're kind of homebodies.
Tom Kranz
Yeah, me too. So you sat in bed with your laptop on your laps and you're sitting there staring at a computer together. Is that how you did that or did you just talk it out?
Rahama Alvi
I illustrated it on my iPad. So I had my iPad open. I was drawing using Procreate and my Apple Pencil, and he was kind of doing Word on his laptop, yes. So he would do a couple of pages and then I would take a look and I would be like, okay, some of the illustrations that I have worked for the pages. And then I have to make more illustrations, which I would get very frustrated about.
Talha Alvi
Some of the fights got really heated.
Tom Kranz
So why would you make more illustrations? Because there weren't enough to carry the story essentially or--
Talha Alvi
That's exactly right. There was a logical progression that you kind of need in the story, right? Like you, we need things to flow. You can't really run from one scene to the next, you know. So I'm like, we need that extra drawing there to this like, oh more work for me.
Tom Kranz
So how many drawings are? I'm thumbing through it right now and there's a, how many drawings did you actually make?
Rahama Alvi
Probably, let's say each of the pages? And then a few more.
Talha Alvi
Think about all the ones you didn't use.
Rahama Alvi
Yes, there were. I think there were about 10 pages that I didn't use.
Tom Kranz
So 50? A hundred? I mean what's a ballpark?
Rahama Alvi
Yea, I would say about fifty.
Tom Kranz
And when you draw, do you draw digitally?
8:40 Rahama Alvi
Yes, I draw digitally. There were some things that I had a hard time drawing digitally. So then I would draw it by hand, take a picture and then go over it digitally. But the reason I personally just love using technology for art. And then also, it means it's so much easier. I could copy and paste characters. I didn't have to redraw everything. I can copy, paste certain rooms and then just kind of add on to it. So, using technology, definitely made it much easier. I think I would have had a harder time working and--
Tom Kranz
--messing with paints and brushes and canvases and paper, and stuff.
Rahama Alvi
Exactly.
Talha Alvi
It would have taken way longer.
Rahama Alvi
So I think we found, personally, I found a smarter way of managing my time and being able to do the book you know and also working at the same time. And with Talha I think, even though it was tough, we kind of pushed each other very much where, um, when he would start writing, he would use very challenging vocabulary and I would remind him--
Tom Kranz
Tech dudes, man, you know?
(Laughs)
One word that he used was "dejected" and I was like, I promise you elementary students are not going to understand what "dejected" means. And I was like, listen, like think about it, if they open the book and there are words that they don't understand, they're gonna lose interest and they're going to put it down
Tom Kranz
Sure. Hey, adults. I'm the same way. My attention span is maybe that of a goldfish. So you know if you lose me in the first 20 seconds, I'm gone.
Rahama Alvi
Yeah, exactly. With kids, I see that. If I play a video that they're not into that's it. They're done. They're like, you know, playing with their hair or looking away or making noise. So it was very important that they, like, anyone should be able to understand the language but especially kids.
Tom Kranz
So you had to scale down the language, kind of scale it to, I don't know what, elementary school age, mostly?
Talha Alvi
For sure.
Tom Kranz
So, how long did the whole process take?
Rahama Alvi
I would say about four or five months.
Tom Kranz
Until you actually had a copy of the book in your hand? Or you saw it on Amazon? And you published it through Amazon>? You didn't use a publisher or anything.
Rahama Alvi
No. So that's the other thing. I did a lot of research on self-publishing on publishing. I listened to a lot of podcasts. I like to do research before I get into something, And so, what I found out was that with publishers, copyright the proposal and then they have specific dates that you have to have words submitted by, and knowing that we both had day jobs I feel like we needed something a little bit more flexible. And when I found out about Amazon self-publishing through another teacher podcast and teacher was talking about how she had published a book as well, and kind of talked through the process. And when I was like, okay, this is something we can both handle while still working.
Talha Alvi
And I can't stress that enough to your listeners and anybody out there. I think it's just such a great idea, especially if you like writing or drawing or whatever your creative pursuits may be, it's such a great way to pursue those and kind of, like, put yourself out there and show you have a creative thing. My problem was always that I would write basically only for myself but eventually we, you know, there's a part of you that kind of longs to share what you're doing and what, you're creating.
12:15 Tom Kranz
Sure. Do you have boxes of this book in your bedroom or are you selling them that way? Or are you just kind of telling people to buy it on Amazon or what?
Rahama Alvi
So we are mostly promoting through Amazon, just because, again, having full-time jobs is very hard to sell them ourselves and then ship them out to different addresses and taking them to the post office. I used to have a small arts and crafts business and I did that. I remember how hard that was. So, that's why that was another thing that really appealed to us about Amazon is that we didn't have to be involved with any of that. You just share the link. They can send it to a friend. They can order for themselves, they can send to whatever addresses they want. So we kind of wanted to not be a part of that. Eventually, that might change and we might want to do some more self-promotion and selling it ourselves, but as of now, I think we're happy with the way that it flows through Amazon.
Talha Alvi
It's a great resource because, I mean, because obviously, they have the KDP which is Amazon's self-publishing tool. But they also have Amazon ads, so they help with the marketing aspect of it and the publishing as well and shipping. So having all that in one convenient place makes the entire process so easy.
Tom Kranz
You do Facebook and you do all the social media stuff and you spread the word. And I think teachers, especially, you guys seem to have your own little networks, actually, a pretty big network. You know, teachers know teachers, pretty much everywhere and, you know, their parents and their parents know their parents and so, so, that's all good.
Rahama Alvi
That came in really handy.
Talha Alvi
I don't think we can stress enough the kind of support that we've received from her school, all of the teachers, her principal, people in the Scotch Plains community. Just everybody's really been very supportive and, you know, it's very humbling and I think it's, you know, it makes you feel good inside.
Tom Kranz
Of course!
14:04 Tom Kranz
More with this fabulous writer/illustrator team in just a moment.
(Promo for "Time Travel Rescue")
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15:10 Kranz
Every adult ought to read this book to their kids because as I said, I learned more about, I mean, I kind of knew what Ramadan was and there's fasting and all that. But the vocabulary is now in there. And as I said, I learned more just from this, you know, than I did in 67 years. I went to public school and it was never taught there, either. So, you're doing your bit or more, even.
Talha Alvi
Thanks for saying that because that was literally the reason we wrote this because on, you know, unfortunately, with the media sometimes there's misconceptions about like there's only like, we're only going to look at the worst people.
Tom Kranz
Of course.
Talha Alvi
And then everybody seems to forget that, like, you have like millions of Muslims living in America.
Tom Kranz
Who are like, regular people, humans. They have jobs and stuff, right?
Rahama Alvi
And that was a huge thing, we wanted to promote through this book as well. The kids going to school, parents putting up decorations, something that everyone can relate to no matter what religion you are. I feel like everyone kind of decorates for their holiday. Families come together. And that's what we do.
Talha Alvi
Kids have anxiety sometimes about things and they go to their parents to help and, you know, turn to them.
Tom Kranz
Yeah, the story is really, it's very relatable between the text and the pictures. It's like, you know, this is an average family basically, but they practice this religion. So, is there really such a thing as a Ramadan tree? And do you have one?
Rahama Alvi
Yes. There there is. And we do that. We do have one. I just decorated it the other day, actually. So that was kind of our inspiration as well. When we were younger and growing up. We didn't have things like Ramadan decorations and lights and things like that. And it could be because it was the age of Islamophobia and a lot of other things.
Talha Alvi
The Islamic side, generally speaking, you know, tends to be a little bit more, a strict sort of religion in terms of expectations for themselves. But just because you're strict and devout, I think it doesn't mean that there isn't room for fun as well.
Rahama Alvi
And that's a cultural thing with the strictness, and less of a religious thing. So that's why, you know, we didn't understand why it can't be fun. And I think a lot of people, a lot of young ones are starting to see that as well. So my huge inspiration was these women, moms who are selling decorations and Ramadan trees and things like that on Etsy on Amazon now and they're making these crafts, to make it fun for their kids because I think they saw that gap and they understood that just the way we did with our book that we need something out there. So, the Ramadan tree, I just discovered it a few years ago, maybe two or three years ago, and I saw a bunch of them on Etsy. I was like, this is such an interesting idea and I don't know exactly who the creator is or where it originated from, but I love the idea. And now there's even more decorations. There's different ornaments that are Islam-themed. There's different, like, moon and sunlight, right? A lot of crescent motifs and decorations like that. And now it's even bigger. Now, where you can go on Amazon and purchase like Ramadan plates and decorations and banners and like that. But it started at a very small scale, you know. It was very tough to find decorations here when we were growing often.
18:36 Tom Kranz
Do you think, do you think that's a generational thing?
Rahama Alvi
Yes.
Tom Kranz
Like so definitely this is, you know, more the younger generation is kind of embracing decorating and just kind of, you know, the whole tree thing and lights?
Talha Alvi
Absolutely. And I think philosophically if you go to any country in the world, they have their, essentially their own version of Islam and, you know, and they have local traditions, that then meld into the religion and give their own version. So, in my mind, I was thinking that, you know, this is a version of Islam that we want, not just obviously the children of Muslim families but also just a Western audience in general and an American audience to be able to relate to. And understand that, like, there's people out there who do celebrate like this. And there are more like these people, then, you know, any caricatures that the media, you know, negatively portrays. And you know, that understanding, and as I said to people in the midwestern areas that don't have Muslim, don't have as much diversity, I just thought there was a gap there, and there was definitely something that maybe would help with the understanding and help. Like, you know, give people some knowledge and about like the religion overall.
19:59 Tom Kranz
it's always been my impression that it's one of the most misunderstood religions, especially in the past 20 years especially, God forbid, since 9/11. And there's still a bunch of, you know, garbage out there and stuff that, that even today, you know, 20 years after that, the ignorance out there is just, it's staggering to me, you know? And I don't have to live with it every day.
Rahama Alvi
We still definitely feel the effects even though it's a lot less, and I think it's our generation that's trying to change that. It's the apps and things, you know, create something that is going to be understandable for everyone. I wanted the book to be fun and enlightening, and to teach people about the religion, but not be too religion heavy because obviously with polls and things like that, it's you know, it becomes an issue. And so that's why we did the vocabulary page the way that we did it where the girl is presenting it as a poster to her class. So that way, if someone is not too comfortable getting into the details of the religion, but they do want to teach their themselves or their child about, you know, a different religion and how they practice, and they have that option to maybe not spend too much time on that page, or spend more time on that page.
Talha Alvi
And the whole point is not to be preaching, because that was my biggest thing. You know, we're not out here, trying to, like, convert people or preach to people, and that's, I think, if there were negative detractors, you know, maybe they would, like, take that line of approach. But the point is that to be informative and fun and I think, you know, that was definitely the goal.
Tom Kranz
Mission accomplished, seriously. I really enjoyed reading this and I recommend it to everybody. Just to wrap up. The book is called The Ramadan Tree. It's the only one on Amazon, I believe, that has that exact title. So if you search The Ramadan Tree, it should come right up. The authors are, well, it was written by Talha and Rahama Alvi, and then Rahama did the illustrations. And, as I said, they're pretty spectacular. And the book just came out. I mean fairly recently, so you know, be one of the first on your block to get this. As I said, it's kind of going to be in the children's section. But any adult who needs to know just a little bit more about Islam and Ramadan will benefit by reading this. And it was great meeting you guys and continued success. Keep on writing and drawing.
Rahama Alvi
Thank you so much. It was great meeting you as well.
Talha Alvi
And thank you so much for having us Tom. It was really an honor. Really cool to do something like this.
Tom Kranz
A pleasure, take care of you guys.
22:45 End