Hind Al-Karimi is proud to tell people in her hometown of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia that she’s a Roadrunner – even if they don’t always know what she means. Fortunately, the educator, author, and alumna is happy to explain:
“That’s my school spirit; we actually are roadrunners – we’re hard workers in life.”
While Jeddah is half a world away from San Antonio, Al-Karimi says it was a great choice for her.
“Everyone who knows me knows that I love Texas,” she said.
But while the location was important to her, so were her interests in education and English.
“I wanted to combine two of the things I’m really interested in, education and – of course, it’s going to be in English – so I applied at UTSA.”
“I really wanted to explore more about studying in another language, which was English,” she said. “I wanted to combine two of the things I’m really interested in, education and – of course, it’s going to be in English – so I applied at UTSA.”
For Al-Karimi, her early childhood education cohort felt like a family, and it was those relationships, as well as the knowledge she gained while earning her master’s that would go on to shape her career.
Back in Jeddah, Al-Karimi began to use the skills she’d learned at UTSA to help her teaching colleagues.
“I saw how some of the teachers were struggling on approaching children in the classroom with different learning styles,” she said.
While holding training workshops, Al-Karimi was able to draw upon her knowledge and experience at UTSA.
“I always told my colleagues and staff I’m working with during training about the teamwork spirit that they should have, and that’s one of the most important things that I’ve learned and I still have in me from UTSA,” she said.
However, when the Covid-19 pandemic spread to Saudi Arabia, Al-Karimi found herself and the rest of her country in lockdown. Feeling frustrated with little to do but watch the increasingly depressing news, she knew she had to come up with something to occupy her time.
“I’m a productive person,” she said, “so it’s really hard for me to just sit and do nothing. I had the idea in the back of my mind to write a story for children, and then last year was the time when I actually saw it on paper. I started writing a line or two, and then I just started writing the plot and creating the characters.”
Thus was born the children’s book, The Best Birthdays Don’t Have Screens. In the story, a camel named CamCam struggles to celebrate his birthday with friends who are more interested in various electronic devices than the world around them.
Al-Karimi says the book came about out of a twofold desire. On the one hand, she says her background in early childhood education has impressed upon her how screen time can affect children.
“I really wanted to focus on how electronics can steal some of those precious moments out of our children’s lives,” she said.
Her second motivation was to show her readers some of the beauty of her country.
“I wanted to show glimpses of the beauty of Saudi Arabia, which has coastal cities and then we have the desert, and then we have the mountains…it’s not all desert, but that’s what a lot of people think Saudi Arabia is,” Al-Karimi said.
“I wanted to show glimpses of the beauty of Saudi Arabia, which has coastal cities and then we have the desert, and then we have the mountains…it’s not all desert, but that’s what a lot of people think Saudi Arabia is,” Al-Karimi said.
This desire also explains her decision to write the book in English, the language which will enable her to reach the most children around the world. Nevertheless, Al-Karimi says she plans to translate it into Arabic for students in Jeddah who may be more adept at their native language.
Bringing to life some of the most famous cities in Saudi Arabia, including Jeddah, where she lives, as well as Riyadh and Abha, once again led Al-Karimi half a world away.
“I was actually looking for a specific kind of cartoon illustration, and surprisingly the illustrator, she is all the way in Indonesia,” she said of illustrator Alland Wijaya. “She’s creative, and she’s so brilliant; she got exactly the style and the design I wanted.”
Now that Jeddah is beginning to open up, Al-Karimi is returning to her teacher training workshops and has begun holding read-along sessions with children in local schools and day-care centers. She uses these reading sessions to ask the children questions about the narrative and the illustrations. She says the book has caused the children to think about their screen use, possibly for the first time.
“They’re just so fascinated,” she said, “they have those ‘aha!’ moments.”
While Al-Karimi says she has plans to write more books featuring CamCam, she will always be especially attached to this one.
“It has a special place in my heart,” she said. “Especially because it was written in a very difficult time.”
Currently, The Best Birthdays Don’t Have Screens is available in the U.S. on Amazon Kindle, and can be found on Amazon at www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08XB8RLFD/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i.
- Christopher Reichert
If you are a COEHD alumn, or know of an alumn who should be featured, please e-mail us at coehdcomm@utsa.edu.