The Blessed Bananas: A Muslim Fable

Tayyaba Syed is an award-winning author and freelance journalist. Her work has been featured in numerous publications like NPR, Chicago Parent, Islamic Horizons, Azizah Magazine, Chicago Crescent, and Halal Consumer Magazine. She co-authored four chapter books in the popular kids' series Jannah Jewels and works as the Research Specialist for Daybreak Press as well as a Curriculum Consultant for Whitestone Foundation's Author Development Program. She also designs unique plots for Noor Kids educational books as their Creative Developer. Tayyaba travels extensively to share her passion for reading and writing by conducting literary seminars for all ages. She was selected to present a biographical paper on Fatima al-Fihri at Georgetown University's Writing Women's Lives Conference in Qatar. While there, she was invited as a guest lecturer at Texas A&M to teach writing to university students. Additionally, she has led a writing intensive at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, and even presented to aspiring writers in Istanbul, Turkey. Tayyaba volunteers as a youth mentor and is pursuing her Islamic Studies certification through the Ribaat Academic Institute, while working on her next novel. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children and enjoys baking sugar-free desserts in her free time. Learn more at www.tayyabasyed.com.

Melani Putri is an illustrator based in Jakarta, Indonesia. After finishing her visual art education at Bandung Institute of Technology, she has been focusing on children's book illustration and has won the National Folktale Illustration award in 2016. Her illustration works include children's books, greeting cards, posters and stationery. Please visit her website at www.memels.com.