Saving Sunshine

Saving Sunshine

Saadia Faruqi, author

Shazleen Khan, illustrator 

First Second, 224 pp. ISBN: 978-1-25079-381-2

Grades 4 and up

Muslim American twins Zara and Zeeshan used to be close, until they started growing up and stopped seeing eye-to-eye. They can barely hold a conversation without bickering. When they are traveling with their parents for a work conference, animal activist Zara discovers a sickly Loggerhead turtle and the two must work together to get him back out to sea. Can the two find common ground for the sake of a giant turtle named Sunshine?

Saadia Faruqi

Saadia Faruqi is a Pakistani American author and interfaith activist. She writes the popular children’s early reader series “Yasmin” and other books for children, including chapter books, graphic novels, and picture books. Her middle grade novels include A Place At The Table co-written with Laura Shovan (a Sydney Taylor Notable 2021), A Thousand Questions (a South Asia Book Award Honor 2021) and Yusuf Azeem Is Not A Hero.

Her first graphic novel Saving Sunshine”was a Kirkus Best Book in 2023. Saadia is editor-in-chief of Blue Minaret, a magazine for Muslim art, poetry and prose, and was featured in Oprah Magazine in 2017 as a woman making a difference in her community. 

She lives in Houston, TX with her husband and children. 

author website