A Kirkus Reviews Best Beginning Reader of 2022!STARRED REVIEW! ? “This rich tale is, by turns, realistic and magical. Readers journey with Shahrzad as her imagination takes flight via a toy airplane. Her encounter with the angry king hones her narrative powers while enabling the king to transcend his prolonged grief and revoke his harsh laws. The illustrations convey Shahrzad’s probing wit and a youngster’s whimsical representation of the story world, which includes a reference to One Thousand and One Nights (or ‘maybe it was just ten’). While Shahrzad wears the same dress throughout the book, her appearance varies, alternating in scale and vantage point, thereby raising an intriguing question about the protagonist’s perspective. Are we seeing her as a ‘girl’ or as a writer recalling her own childhood memories? In this manner, the overall narrative invites us to ponder the nature of time as both cyclical and linear. Clever construction and intertextual inspirations weave a thought-provoking homage to a fabled heroine and master storyteller.”
Kirkus Reviews

STARRED REVIEW! ? “Tender, empathetic, and unflappably hopeful, this is the retold story of Scheherazade. In this version, set in contemporary times: Shahrzad’s curiosity is insatiable. She loves forming what she sees into enchanting tales. When she meets a young refugee, she learns about a king whose grief made him cruel; she imagines how the king might change, if only he could put himself in his subjects’ positions. The book’s rough, mixed-media illustrations further suggest the power of unbound creativity in bringing about a kinder world.”
Foreword Reviews

“A gentle and beguiling picture book with a spirited child heroine at its heart, Shahrzad & the Angry King is a fable for our troubled times... Shahrzad’s tale is very short, the story simple; its words are sparse, its drawings disarmingly naïve. But this seeming artlessness skillfully blends many kinds of storytelling, from observation to fantasy. When Shahrzad makes her first appearance in the book, she’s acting like a journalist (think the boy reporter Tintin), a witness, even a child spy... Then she starts to ‘regale others’ with stories she has heard, inspiring some of Kazemi’s most affectionate drawing. The attitudes struck by the listeners... are wonderfully observed, economical and lighthearted, displaying the carefree bravura of celebrated illustrators such as Quentin Blake and Charlotte Voake... One day she comes upon a young boy [whose] family have had to flee their home, suffering under a tyrant’s cruel oppression... The woebegone boy’s fate affects Shahrzad deeply. She imagines herself in his shoes, and this empathy gives her a mission. To achieve it, reportage and bardic chronicling won’t suffice; Shahrzad turns instead to imagination and daydreaming. She flies into the presence of the angry king himself, stepping firmly into her namesake’s role... Eventually, much to her surprise, Shahrzad finds she has succeeded. The king revokes his cruel laws and the people are once again free to dance, giving Kazemi another opportunity for a double-page spread of buoyant, inventive drawing, ecumenical as to body shapes, with expressive gestures, poses, leaps, struts and general élan. Shahrzad will tell the boy her daydream to give him hope. At the close, she sets about writing it down. That is the plan and the wish of this story, and it goes to the heart of fairy tales, which are, as Italo Calvino put it, ‘consolatory fables.’“
New York Times

“In this Scheherazade variation, its storyteller heroine becomes a modern child: Shahrzad, an inveterate eavesdropper who loves stories… When a boy at a park tells Shahrzad that he and his family have had to leave their country because their grief-stricken king passed laws that make life unbearable, Shahrzad imagines herself flying in a toy plane straight to the palace to confront the monarch. Art by author-illustrator Kazemi appears scribbly and informally stylized, with subtly expressive characters and spreads that are alive with texture and color. As Shahrzad dazzles the king day after day with tales that prod him to consider the consequences of his actions, Kazemi illuminates the storyteller’s gift (and the book’s own): the ability to juggle different points of view, and to use stories as visions for change.”
Publishers Weekly