Deep inside, I wanted these stories to be a gift for the thousands of Sudanese children growing up in the diaspora- kids living in countries where Arabic isn’t the main language, kids who understand and process things faster in English. Kids that were like me, and are like my children. They’ve been separated from life in Sudan, and when it comes to content made for Sudanese children, they’re often forgotten.

There’s plenty of beautiful cultural material out there for Arabic-speaking Sudanese kids, but their siblings in the diaspora miss out because of the language barrier. And that means they’re also missing out on their own heritage. But, they, too, deserve to experience their culture- and in a language they actually understand. That’s why, for the first time, these folktales are being told in a way that mixes English with phrases and terms from the Sudanese Arabic they hear at home.

Term like ‘Izzayakum!’ and ‘haboba’, the characters eat foods they know like ‘bamya’, ‘taameya’ mix the English-Arabic hybrid language of the diaspora.

In this way, Sudanese diaspora kids can share them with their non-Sudanese friends. It helps them take pride in who they are and where they come from- which is so important, especially for kids growing up as minorities in places like the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Europe and Australia.