Jude’s New Bicycle

Taghreed Najjar is a pioneer of modern children's literature in Jordan. A graduate of the American University of Beirut,Taghreed started her career as a teacher before becoming a full time writer of picture books and young adult novels. Her YA novels have been celebrated widely by her readers and various schools in the region have adopted them as part of their curriculum. A number of her books have won awards while others have been translated into foreign languages like English, Swedish, Turkish, French and Chinese.  
One of her most critically acclaimed works is a series of ten picture books revolving around six-year old Jude and her family and friends.'The Halazone Series', deals with everyday childhood issues which are treated with humor and deftness by the author. One of Taghreed’s pet projects was collecting old Arabic children rhymes and publishing them in book and digital form to make them accessible to the modern child and family of today. She published two collections of rhymes, the latest entitled 'Musical Tickles' was selected by the National Centre for Children's Literature (a service of the French National Library) as one of the best publications in the Arab World in 2012/2013.

Taghreed is a member of the Jordanian Writer’s Association and takes part in international and regional conferences and workshops that deal with children literature.

About the Illustrator

Loujaina Al-Assil studied Visual Communication and Interior Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University. She has been working in the field of illustration since 1969 and has also supervised the art production in several children magazines in Syria and other Arab countries. Since 2001, she has been the artistic advisor of children's books at the Syrian Ministry of Culture and has hosted six individual painting exhibitions in Syria, Jordan, France, and Italy. In addition to her art exhibitions, Lujaina has taken part and contributed in regional and international books fairs around the world and has presented several lectures and supervised many workshops in the field of children's book illustrations in Italy, Kuwait, Sharjah, Lebanon, Tunis, and Syria.