About the Story:

Peace Farm is a story about Abir’s family farm. Beautiful vegetables grow here. Bees, butterflies, earthworms all help Nahima and Mohamed, Abir’s parents who are great farmers from Syria. Peace Farm is kind and loving to humans but also to plants and animals. While illuminating the beauty of this Peace Farm, this book also presents some challenges that the family is facing such as climate change.

The Process of Illustrating:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miwa started working with Abir’s family to document knowing rooted in an urban farm that served as an important source of fresh produce for many racialized refugee and immigrant communities. Nahima and Mohamed, Abir’s parents, were generational farmers in Syria. Since relocating to Calgary, Canada, they have been growing vegetables that remind them of their homeland and provide a sense of home to others who have experienced forced displacement. Some of these vegetables include kouza, fava beans, and hummus, which are illustrated by children in this picture book. The family calls their farm “Peace Farm.”

In our research, we documented the richness of knowing related to STEM disciplines, observed in traditional ways of caring for the soil, plants, and animals at the Peace Farm (Takeuchi, Elhowari, & Yuen, 2021; Takeuchi, Dadkhahfard, Kopparla, & Elhowari, 2014 – available in Presentations and Papers), through our multiple visits stretched over several years. We wanted to shine light on the knowledge that is often not seen or not validated in the school.

Shima and Ehisann worked on multiple iterations of illustrations – eventually Shima drew characters who represent the family on their terms. Miwa, Ehisann, and Shima engaged in multiple illustration sessions at Peace Farm and at the family’s home. Using Adobe Photoshop, Shima incorporated children’s drawings in the final illustration. The family, especially Abir, gave us great insights on how the illustration should look like. She also was a great storyteller and created a narrative together with us. Ehisann translated stories into Arabic to honour the family’s linguistic repertoires.

Peace Farm by Dadkhahfard, S., Takeuchi, M.A., El Daher, A., & El Elbirani, E. is licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0