Book Guide: Record, Fatima!
QUESTIONS ABOUT EMOTIONS AND CHALLENGES
1. It is important for Fatima to win. Is it important to you? How does it feel to win?
2. Fatima loses to Cosima. How does it feel to you to lose? Do you have any tricks to make it not a hassle?
3. When Cosima wins, Fatima gets angry and shouts: Cheating. Then she regrets it. Have you ever gotten so angry that you did something that you later regretted? What happened then?
4. Fatima got angry quickly. But then she also became happy again quickly. What about your emotions, do they come quickly or slowly? Do they pass quickly or slowly? Do you have friends who are like you, or different from you? How is it?
5. Fatima finds it difficult to dribble between the cones. But fun. Do you think something is hard, but fun?
6. Shamso says that it took her a whole summer to learn how to kick the ball. Have you practiced something for a really long time? Is there something that you would like to learn and that you could practice for a long time to master?
QUESTIONS ABOUT INTERESTS, FOOD AND SIBLINGS
1. Fatima, Ayaan and the others like to play football during breaks at school. What do you like to do at recess? Is there something that you would like to do, but that you are not doing today?
2. Fatima wants to become a professional in Paris. Ayaan wants to be president. Why do you think they want to be just that? What do you think is good to know if one is going to be president? What do you want to be? What seems funny about it?
3. Fatima makes a cambuulo that both she and Ayaan think are delicious. Is there anything that you think is extra good to eat? Is there a dish that someone does particularly well, do you think?
4. Fatima and Ayaan's parents think they are like siblings. What do they mean then, do you think? Fatima has siblings, Ayaan does not. What can be good about having siblings? What could be good about not having it?
ABOUT ANGER
All people feel all kinds of emotions. But depending on our gender norms, girls and boys are often more comfortable with different kinds of emotions. For girls, it is more okay to show sadness, and less okay to be angry. Anger is an important emotion because it is like a signaling system that shows that something is wrong and gives strength to express it. However, all children may need to practice expressing anger in ways that are not directed at others, for example physically. In books there is a tendency to show sad girls and angry boys, so it is good to challenge the idea of who gets to be angry with children like Fatim, who show anger easily.
ABOUT CONSUMPTION STANDARDS
There is an expectation of an ability to consume in society, of having a certain economic standard, a so-called socio-economic norm. It shows
in expectations around things like gifts at graduation, how easy it is to ask everyone to contribute money to some school activity or that all children have access to surfing in a smartphone. It is true that a large group in society today has the ability to pay such things, and many have much more than that. But at the same time, the gaps between the haves and the have-nots are increasing, creating different conditions
for different children. In this book, reflection is given to those children for whom it is not obvious to be able to buy all the things that one wants or that is needed for a leisure activity.
