Life is hard enough for girls who just want to fit in, but being the only brown child in her class set Zarqa Nawaz apart in a way that copying other children’s clothes and lunchboxes could not overcome. Yet Zarqa Nawaz saw the funny side, such as the agony that is gym class when your religious parents forbid you from shaving your legs or the collection of idiosyncratic conflicts that make up Moslem summer camp. British-Canadian Nawaz is well-known across the pond for her TV show about contemporary Moslem life, Little Mosque On The Prairie, and this relaxed autobiography takes an irreverent approach to thorny issues, including increasing conservatism in Islam and the important balancing act that is finding the right partner in a modern arranged marriage. Her fond, well-timed anecdotes had me laughing out loud, while the chatty style and relatively slender length makes it a very easy read.
Book Review: Laughing All The Way To The Mosque by Zarqa Nawa