Saints and Misfits pdf

Sajidah "S.K." Ali is an Indian-Canadian author of children's books, best known for her Asian/Pacific American Award-winning debut young adult novel Saints & Misfits, about Janna Yousuf, an Indian-American hijabi who grapples with getting sexually assaulted by a friend's cousin from her local mosque.Ali was born in South India and immigrated to Canada when she was three.The first language she learned in school was French.She wrote her first story in seventh grade.She has a degree in Creative Writing from York University. Aside from writing, Ali also works as a teacher and has written articles for the Toronto Star.She mentions Judy Blume as one of her biggest inspirations for her writing career.Ali is a practicing Muslim.In January 2017, she created the hashtag MuslimShelfSpace as a way to shine light on books by other Muslim authors.She lives with her family in Toronto.Ali is friends with fellow writers Ausma Zehanat Khan and Uzma Jalaluddin.Khan told an interviewer that they considered themselves the Sisterhood of the Pen, and appreciated comments as they shared early drafts of their work

Saints and Misfits pdf by S.K. Ali

8 Hours and 5 Minutes
There are three kinds of people in my world:
1. Saints, those special people moving the world forward. Sometimes you glaze over them. Or, at least, I do. They’re in your face so much, you can’t see them, like how you can’t see your nose.
2. Misfits, people who don’t belong. Like me—the way I don’t fit into Dad’s brand-new family or in the leftover one composed of Mom and my older brother, Mama’s-Boy-Muhammad.
Also, there’s Jeremy and me. Misfits. Because although, alliteratively speaking, Janna and Jeremy sound good together, we don’t go together. Same planet, different worlds.
But sometimes worlds collide and beautiful things happen, right?
3. Monsters. Well, monsters wearing saint masks, like in Flannery O’Connor’s stories.
Like the monster at my mosque.
People think he’s holy, untouchable, but nobody has seen under the mask.
Except me.
"THE  ideal time is when no one’s around and no one’s looking. But right now there’s a little girl cross-legged on wooden bleachers peering at me from beneath a hand held aloft at her forehead, a smile on her face. I can’t tell if the smile is a result of how long she’s been watching me bob here in the water. To check whether she’s staring, I test her with a long gaze to the left of the bleachers, where Dad and his wife Linda are barbecuing."