Alex Casey talks to Dr Maysoon Salama, author of The Heavenly Papa Giraffe.
There’s a page in The Heavenly Papa Giraffe where a peaceful and closeknit family of giraffes are confronted with a snarling hyena on their walk across the savannah. “I hate giraffes, I hate giraffes,” he shouts as they quietly shuffle past. “You have tall necks, and your skin is patchy. You don’t belong in this jungle. My tribe demands you leave.” With their heads bowed, they try to ignore the hatred directed their way: “the giraffe family were all sad, but did not yell back.”
Written by Dr Maysoon Salama, Muslim community leader in Ōtautahi and now thrice-published author, The Heavenly Papa Giraffe is likely the very first picture book in the world grappling with the March 15 terror attack in 2019. Salama’s own son Atta was among the 51 lives lost, and her husband was left severely injured. “There is no cap for the trauma of it,” she tells The Spinoff. “But I had this core of grief inside me that I knew I wanted to channel into stories.”
Her first book Aya and the Butterfly was published in 2021 in collaboration with the Ministry of Education to “support, reflect, and celebrate the Muslim community” in Aotearoa. Salama wrote it for her granddaughter, who was just two years old when her father was killed. “In the story, Aya finds comfort and hope and solace in the companionship of a butterfly,” Salama explains. “The butterfly is about transforming from a dark period into something really beautiful.”
Salama soon took Aya and the Butterfly over to read at the United Nations. “I presented it to show you can transform grief and feelings of sadness and loss into something powerful,” she says. The book was then adapted into a puppet show which still travels Aotearoa with Birdlife Productions, entertaining audiences aged 3-9 to this day. “It is a really beautiful show and I still get a lot of good comments about it from teachers to community members.”
Still, Salama had more stories to tell. “I really thought the story of March 15 had to be told for the younger generations somehow, and the lessons have to be learned,” she says. “It was a desire to help my granddaughter and other children understand what happened. She’s growing up having all these inquisitive questions, always asking ‘where is daddy?’ and I needed to answer that question in a gentle and comforting way that really supports her grieving.”
It began with the idea of the giraffe, a tall and proud animal with a kind nature. “My son was very tall and he was a very nice character, always very gentle and caring,” says Salama. “Then I thought, ‘who is the worst enemy of the giraffe?’ It’s the hyena.” The rest of the animal kingdom quickly fell into place. “Once I had the jungle setting, the metaphor was there and it became easier to put together something that was really subtle and easy for children.”
When a hyena attack happens at the watering hole in the book, it is the birds who bring news back to the families that “something horrible has happened in your sacred place.” Native species like kea, tui, pīwakawaka and kiwi promise to spread the news widely to get help. “I wanted the story to be universal but also relatable to Aotearoa, so children specifically in New Zealand could connect with the story and to our unique environment,” says Salama.
The birds are not just symbolic of the role the media played on March 15, but also serve as a connection between cultures. “In Māori tradition, birds are seen as messengers between the physical and the spiritual words, which is also an idea found in Islam,” she says. “When the souls of the believers pass away, they are kept in green birds who fly freely in paradise. Birds can offer solace and healing, and they can also bridge between Islamic and Māori cultures.”
Another distinct aspect in the illustration of The Heavenly Papa Giraffe is that the giraffe family are all pictured wearing different coloured hijab. “That was an essential part of the book,” says Salama. “I needed to put them there to affirm the Muslim representation and help young Muslim children see their faith and their cultural identity reflected. I’d really like to keep normalizing the hijab in the mainstream… and it also looks really cute on the characters.”
And while her granddaughter Aya, now seven years old, is yet to read the book, Salama says The Heavenly Papa Giraffe will be there waiting for her “when the time comes”. Even though the events of the book are intrinsically linked to March 15, she hopes the book helps children of any faith through their experience of grief. “I want kids to understand life and death and the enduring connection between them and their loved ones in a way that is really easy and gentle.”
Since its release on March 15 this year, Salama has been heartened by the “overwhelming positive response” from people in the community, and says the project has also helped her own journey through grief and trauma. “It’s given me so much comfort, and it’s given me so much joy that I’m doing something helpful,” she says. “I’m really thrilled by the heartwarming response because it shows something I’ve always believed in: the power of storytelling.”
