Warm and wonderful and a little sad. There are so many shining examples of human kindness in this book, and the illustrations are amazing! A good book that makes you want to do good things.

A heartwarming and uplifting story about hope and community with a healthy dash of culture. The illustrations are beautiful and vibrant.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a good story explaining the experience that some immigrant children have. The main character, Salma, is a very relatable kid. I really liked the pictures also.

Salma and her mother are living in Vancouver, Canada, far from their home in Syria. Her father is still there and while she and her mother both miss him, her mother is particularly unhappy with this temporary separation. Salma tries everything she can think of to bring a smile to her mom's face, but to no avail. Finally, she decides to make some foul shami (a fava bean dish) after remembering the smile on her mother's face the last time she served it to Salma and her father. But how do you make a Syrian dish when you don't even know the English words for the ingredients? Even with the help of everyone at the Welcome Center where they live, Salma discovers that things can and do go wrong. After the most important ingredient, sumac, gets spilled all over the place, it is Granny Donya who saves the day for the disheartened Salma. Setting this in a center that welcomes refugees from all over gives this book its nice flavor of diversity, while at the same time showing readers the difficulties faced by new immigrants. From learning the language so they can navigate everyday life to dealing with homesickness and separation from loved ones, this book is all about empathy and kindness. The sweet illustrations are done in a palette of pastels, with a decidedly Middle Eastern geometric mosaic pattern framing them. This book is a real winner with my young readers and we have returned to it many, many times.

I loved this book. We need to HYPE more books like this. Salmas story was beautiful in the way it brought people together with food as the center. My son really enjoyed it!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Really great book, it was out of order on my arc so it was kinda hard to read but other than that minor glitch it was awesome

Salma the Syrian Chef is ultimately a story of love and family, community, and hardship. A story for all ages as it covers sadness of familial separation due to the immigration system, introduction of customs and culture to new spaces, and the importance of building community. Salma's positivity is contagious as she enlists members of her local community to help make a tradition Syrian dish. The plot displays both the innocence and strength of children in times of hardship, something adults are not always able to hold onto. There is a simple profundity within this story; a child making a dish to help her mother smile again; yet, drawing attention to the absences of family with her father overseas in Syria and disconnection from traditions. The text coupled with the pastel shaded images makes these concepts easily digestible and memorable.

Canada is more diverse than ever before and all community members have a role to play in helping newcomers find a sense of home. Perfect for story time, a bedtime, or for an introduction to more serious discussions, this is a story that can be read again and again.

Telling refute stories has twofold value. 1) It allows refuge children to see themselves in fiction. 2) It promotes understanding for other children, to help them see the pain and struggle that their peers may be facing. This particular book also reaches a third group: children whose parents struggle with depression.

This 40 page picture book meant for 4-7 year old children is full of diversity, community and love. The only thing missing, is a recipe for the dish, foul shami, that Salma recruits everyone at the refugee Welcome Center to help her make to cheer up her mom. Possible flag is there is a gay couple featured in the text and illustrations.
Salma and her mom are refugees from Syria living in Vancouver, and desperately missing Salma's dad who still has not been able to join them. When Salma shares her sadness with Nancy at the Welcome Center, she is encouraged to draw her good memories. And then Salma has the idea to cook a dish from home for her mom. The other kids at the center mention foods they miss, Ayman from Egypt, Riya from India, Evan from Venezuela. Then the translator, Jad, from Jordan helps her find a recipe online.
Convincing herself that she can do this, Salma draws a picture for each of the ingredients since she doesn't know the names in English. She then heads to the market with Ayesha from Somalia, an older girl that helps her cross the street, and get the needed groceries.
Back at the Welcome Center to cook. Malek and Amir, a gay couple from Lebanon help her chop the vegetables and kiss away each others onion tears. The spices make Salma sneeze, but she can't find the sumac.
Granny Donya from Iran has the missing spice and reassures Salma that she can do this. That is until the olive oil bottle slips and falls and shatters. With no more money and feeling discouraged, it takes Nancy and everyone else to convince Salma not to give up as the dish is made with love and Mama will love it.
Everything is set up to surprise Mama with the dish, but once mama comes home and the door bell rings, it is Salma who is surprised with all her friends coming over to bring her olive oil.
Mama laughs and tells Salma her smile is home, and Salma dreams of riding her bike around the Vancouver seawall laughing with her friends and Mama.
I love the sense of community that it takes to make the dish and that she finds love and support from so many. I also like her determination to make her mother smile along with her willingness to accept help when she needs it.

Salma the Syrian Chef is a wonderful picture book that is an absolute delight!

These are the types of books I needed when I was little. Reading the same old picture books over and over got boring, but books like THESE would have had me thrilled and excited. As an adult, I can appreciate them even more. Diversity in children's literature is a must these days! I'm so glad to see a book like this out and about!

Salma lives in Vancouver (Yay! Canada!) but previously lived in Syrian. Her Father will be coming to Canada soon, but for now it's just her and her Mama. Salma wants to make Mama happy, and she knows just the way! She could make some Syrian food for Mama. With a little help from her friends, Salma sets herself on a mission to brighten up her Mama's day because she can't fix the bigger problems.

My heart is SINGING. This book is so sweet and such a wonderful tale. I can't talk highly enough about this book! It has to find a bigger audience because it is just so lovely! The heart and soul within this book is just magical. I highly recommend this book, in fact, I can't recommend it enough! Adults and children alike will love this sweet story.

This story is for a bit older group - at least grade ones. This book has a wonderful little plot and tells a beautiful story. It's not just pretty pictures and simple words. There's excellent sentence structure and a really well thought out plot. I applaud Danny Ramadan, I'm impressed!

Five out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Annick Press Ltd. for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Summary: Salma and her mother are living in Vancouver’s Welcome Center waiting for Papa to join them from Syria. When her mother returns from her long days of job hunting and English classes, Salma notices she no longer laughs. Salma tries making her mom funny pictures and telling jokes, but all she gets is a sad smile, “full of love but empty of joy”. Finally Salma has an idea–she’ll make foul shami, one of her mother’s favorite Syrian dishes. She gets plenty of help from others living at the Welcome Center, but things don’t turn out the way Salma’s hoping. There’s no sumac in the spice rack, and she accidentally breaks the bottle of olive oil. But even with its imperfections, the foul shami works its magic, and Mama laughs! Not only that, but Salma’s new friends save the day, and she begins to find beauty and joy in her new home. 40 pages; ages 4-8.

Pros: This child’s-eye view of what it’s like to move to a new country acknowledges the difficulties while maintaining hope and optimism. The colorful illustrations perfectly accentuate the story, bringing the people from so many different places to life.

Cons: There was no recipe for the foul shami that was so central to the story.

Friends at a welcome center help Salma, a Syrian refugee, prepare foul shami, a dish that is meant to ease her mother’s sadness and remind her of home.. Young readers will have an opportunity to empathize with a contemporary problem explained in a simple way that is appropriate for this audience. The cheerful illustrations convey resilience without minimizing the hardships for children facing this tragic situation.

Review copy: Digital ARC via Netgalley

This is a sweet story. A young girl and her mother have come to a new country and they're dealing with the emotional toll of being apart from her father and adjusting to their circumstances. Salma gets the idea to cheer up her mother by cooking something that they used to eat in Syria. The people around Salma help her with this project, but there are many trials along the way.

The story and illustrations show the frustrations and some of the sadness, but not in such a way as to overwhelm young readers. Readers can see that the people around us are what truly make a home.

Recommendation: This is a great addition to any library (home or otherwise) especially for those wanting to increase their representation of immigrants. It's also simply a nice book for those who enjoy picture books centered around food.

Salma the Syrian Chef is a heartwarming story of a young refugee girl determined to make her mother happy in their new home by making her favorite Syrian dishes. The book gives young readers insight into refugee families who don't have a firm command on their new language, find the culture unfamiliar, and are separated from family members. What makes this book most uplifting is that Salma embraces her new country wholeheartedly and tries to spread her joy to her mother, both attesting to the resilience of children and offering hope for refugee families. Salma's Syrian recipe provides readers with a slice of Syrian culture. The book does include a same-sex couple and description of their kiss, offhand, but more conservative parents might avoid or take offense. 5 to 7.

This is a fabulous story and I can't wait to add it to my classroom library! This book talks about Syrian refuges in a respectful and realistic context that would inform kids. It was such a lovely story and would be great in any school.

We first meet Salma staring out her window at the rain as she tries to pronounce ‘Vancouver.’ Her entertaining struggles to get the word correct reflect the authentic challenges faced by new immigrants, refugees, and all of us trying to learn a new language. (You don't want to hear me butcher Korean.)

Salma and her mother live in an apartment in a Welcome Center in Vancouver, Canada. Life is hard, especially for Mama. Not only does she have to look after Salma, she is trying to find work and learn English. Both of them miss Papa back in Syria. Mama hardly laughs anymore, so Salma tries to cheer her up, but no matter what she does, ‘all she gets is Mama’s sad smile, full of love but empty of joy.”

At the Welcome Center daycare, Salma “draws her home back in Damascus: a yellow house with a garden surrounding it like a necklace.” While drawing she comes up with an idea for how to cheer her mother up.

If you have ever been out of the country for a while, you will know what it is to miss the flavours of home. Everyone at the center, adults and children alike, miss special food from their own cultures. For Salma, it is ‘foul shami.’ With the help of adults, she gets a recipe from the internet, goes shopping for ingredients, and proceeds to prepare her mother’s favourite dish. When it is nearly done she realizes she is missing sumac, the final ingredient. Thankfully another adult, Granny Donya, comes to the rescue. Unfortunately, there are more near disasters before it all comes together.

When presented with the final dish, Salma’s mother reminds her, and us, that home is much more than food or place, it’s about being with people you love.

Salma the Syrian Chef is a story about being forced to leave a land you love. It's about what we miss when we are away from our roots, and reminds us to be thankful for the diverse, multicultural communities we live in now.

Both the author and illustrator live here in Vancouver. A sense of place is integral to the book. It is a delight to see this city I call home presented, yet at the same time, I am conscious of Salma and others, aching for their far away places they call home. Anna Bron's vibrant art pulls all of this together. Just as Salma's Syrian culture frames her experiences in her new country, Anna Bron's Syrian style borders frame the illustrations and words in this book. They are stunning. In some places the text and illustrations are separated by additional borders. While admiring them, my fingers itched to get hold of some fabric and start making a quilt.

I wish I could tell you how Anna Bron creates her art but my ARC doesn't provide any details and I couldn't find anything in my internet search. However, I encourage you to go check out her website to see more of her work. I hope you can carve out time to watch her animated short films. Just Wow!

Danny Ramadan's gorgeous writing is full of swoonworthy lines. If you are looking for mentor text that highlights metaphor, look no further than this: "Salma's heart aches like a tiny fire in her chest when she thinks of Papa. She wonders if Mama's heart is burning too." After reading this, I plan to track down a copy of Danny Ramadan's first novel, The Clothesline Swing. It won all kinds of awards. I can hardly wait to get started.

I have two minor quibbles with this book. First, the text is smallish for a picture book, but that might be just because I am basing this on a digital ARC. Second, there is no recipe for foul shami in it and I can't find one online! If you are like me, you will want to make it as soon as you finish reading.

This book really pulled at my heart strings. It’s about homesickness, the immigrant experience, making new friends, and the desire to lift someone else's spirits. There’s also food involved. I read this via NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher.

Salma wants to make her mama laugh, laugh like she used to back home in Syria, laugh like she used to with her friends at the refugee camps. With the help of many others who are living at the Welcome Center in Vancouver, Salma tries to find the best recipe to make for her mama who has been sad for so long. Her father is back at home, they can't rebuild their house here, Salma has difficulty saying the names of the foods, spices, and vegetables in English but she makes drawings and gets help going to the super market. Such a nice story of family, friendship, and the comforts of food. "Your smile is home." Salma's mother says to her.

Think back to when you were a child and you picked up a book and began to read and noticed that the illustrations looked like the place where you lived, or the setting was the same city you live in and you can picture all the places the characters go. There is a special kind of magic that takes hold when a child can see their experience reflected back from the pages of a book.

Salma the Syrian Chef by Danny Ramadan and Ann Bron is a three course meal of perfection. An incredible mirror book for the many refugees coming to Canada in the last number of years and an exceptional window book for those born in Canada to understand the challenges faced by newcomers.

The appetizer course is the story’s setting at the Welcome Centre in Vancouver. Danny Ramadan, surely drawing from his own experience as a newcomer to Canada, shares with his readers the feeling of arriving in Vancouver and those early days of being totally immersed in a place that is so very different from where he came. Vancouver is rainy and colder that Syria, and Salma sees her Mom doesn’t smile as much anymore. Learning English is difficult but it’s even more challenging to not have friends who can speak the same language.

The main course is the community of people around Salma who help lift her spirits and who remind each other of the things they miss from where they were born. Food is a huge part of the human experience and can evoke many memories of family and home. Each of the new friends Salma meets misses food from where they grew up and have nostalgic feelings about the food they miss. Salma wants to make her mom smile by making foul shami, her favourite dish, so she asks for help and receives it from many other people living at the Welcome Centre. It makes her feel a bit more at home her in her new country.

The dessert is the smile on Salma’s mother’s face when she sees how Salma worked so hard to make her favourite food and the friends who all helped her accomplish her task. Salma rediscovers that home is whenever her mother is near and her mother reminds Salma she is always at home in her smile.

Danny Ramadan uses some of the most beautiful images I have read lately in a picture book. His beautiful smilies and metaphors colour the text with life and help the reader really get to the heart of how Salma is feeling in her new home.

Anna Bron’s illustrations are a delightful representation of Salma’s life. Drawing from a colour palette reminiscent of the Middle East, with beautiful tile motifs bordering the illustrations, they are a picture perfect representation of everyday life in a new city with a remembrance of what was left behind.

I’m certain this book will find its way into many classrooms and homes and will provide comfort to endless numbers of newcomers to Canada. Unfortunately it releases after I Read Canada Day because I can’t think of a book that would be more perfect to share on that day than one that celebrates family, compassion, understanding and home

Salma the Syrian Chef is a diverse picture book about a young girl doing everything she can to make her mother happy.

Salma and her mother are new to the country. They have moved from Syria, and they both are missing their home and family that they had to leave behind. Salma's heart hurts every time she sees how sad her mother looks. She knows her mother is homesick for Syria, so Salma decides to surprise her mom by making their favorite Syrian dish from home

It doesn't take long before Salma realizes that she is in over her head. But thanks to the help of some wonderful neighbors, Salma is able to pull off her big surprise from home.

This picture book is a beautiful depiction of how all cultures are beautiful. The love between Salma and her mother shows that families can always make it through hard times together. The love is expanded more when they neighbors all join in to help Salma pull off her big surprise.