Noor and her Paper Boat and Yasser’s Dream have both been nominated for the Palestine Book Award 2026. Neither is a book about politics. They are books about children — one who folds a boat and sends it out on water she cannot cross, one who keeps a dream he has been given no reason to keep.
We publish a lot of books about knowing things: the names of animals, the first words of the Qur’an, how a body works. These two are about carrying something. That is harder to write for six-year-olds, and it is the reason we are glad these are the two that were seen.
Both titles came out of the same editorial question: what does a child do with a feeling that has nowhere to go? The answer in Noor is a paper boat. The answer in Yasser’s Dream is a night sky and a promise. In both cases the adult in the story does not fix anything, which was deliberate — children can tell when a book is lying to them about how quickly things resolve.
The illustration brief for both books was one line: draw it the way a child would remember it, not the way a camera would see it.
The shortlist is announced later this year. Both titles are in print, both are levelled at SRL 4–5 and carry the full educator toolkit treatment, and both are already in the Alif Kids library for schools reading them digitally.
If you are a school looking to bring either title into a unit on empathy, displacement or resilience, the discussion prompts and family guides are written and free with the licence. Ask us and we will send them across.
Published 2 September 2026 in Award. Questions? Get in touch.
Shortlisted for Best Free Digital Tool for Education — one of eight finalists, with the winner announced in Dubai on 11 November.
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Thirty-six weeks of planning, assessment and home-learning material per series, mapped to four curriculum frameworks — included in the licence, not sold as an add-on.
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Chosen as recommended reading for classroom use — and picked up for the collections of four Malaysian state libraries.
Read more →Thirty minutes, your student numbers, an honest answer about whether we are a fit. Onboarding, training and data migration are included — there is nothing to sign to find out.