Who would have thought that two Jordanian women would end up living in neighbouring towns in Limburg (the Netherlands) to then finally meet, via a touch of divine luck and Petra Stienen(!) to work on a book about finding your place in the world.

Over the past year I have been working with Lana Nasser, illustrating her (Dutch) book ‘Shabby en het wezen van de regenboog’ (Shabby and the essence of the rainbow).

The story is about a cat (Shabby) from another dimension. She wakes up on a rooftop in the city Hanendam, and from there she is trying to find her purpose/mission. It leads to her meeting various magical characters, like a circus elephant looking for a new job at the municipality, a statue that’s in love with a river, a milk-addicted cat with existential angst, and a rainbow boy that travels with the light and rain. In the meantime, drama breaks out in the city, from buildings being torn down to dogs being poisoned.

The book touches on social issues, like integration and assimilation, mixed marriages, the environment and so on. Essentially, it’s a story about looking for purpose and finding it in helping others.  It’s a modern fabel for adults, but can also be read by older children (I would say from 12 yrs more or less)

There were many drawings and styles that we went through, searching for the right style to match this book (soon a more in-depth post about the drawing process).

_{^{Going through the many drawings}}

From the 15th November 2020 you can buy the book via Koops bookstore in Venlo

Follow me on instagram to keep in the loop, for now the book is only available in Dutch. I hope we’ll have an English version in the future : )