Call Me Al

Grade 8 student Ali Khan, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant, juggles the competing pressures to fit in with his peers, to meet his parents’ high expectations, and to deal with the casual racism that he encounters. Amid tension with his best friend Zach, Ali begins to write poetry, encouraged by his teacher, but forbidden by his father, a doctor back home who now drives a taxi to make a living. When he and his mother and brothers are the victims of a racist attack by teens at their local plaza and the family learns of a deadly shooting at a mosque in New York, his poems take a darker turn. But a groundswell of support from his sympathetic classmates and neighbours helps change his mind, and his family ends the month of Ramadan with a large Eid party for everyone, an event where Ali reads one of his poems. At the end of the school year, Ali is selected as valedictorian and gives another rousing poetry performance.

A timely and highly relevant story, Call Me Al seems both ripped from today’s headlines and sharply reflective of contemporary diverse pre-teens’ experiences and thinking. At school, Ali struggles with his identity, becoming exasperated and embarrassed by the traditional dress and manners of the recent Pakistani immigrant he is assigned to as interpreter, and by trying to hide the fact he is fasting for Ramadan. But when his friends tease him, the tables are turned, and he decides that fitting in is not worth hiding his culture. After the attacks, he becomes despondent about being accepted, and his poems start to reflect a contemplation of revenge. The poems, themselves, are rhythmic and direct, realistically unsophisticated as one would expect for a 13-year-old.

Ali is a complex and evolving character, and his narration offers direct insight into his insecurities. Zach, too, is more than one-dimensional, wavering between supporting his lifelong friend and wishing to fit in. Ali’s family is well-depicted, from his overworked mother, to his dedicated but strict father, to his wise and understanding grandfather. But there is something one-dimensional about the popular and richer friends who don’t seem to completely accept him, and even more so about his young and cheerful teacher Ms. McIntosh. She seems almost too perfect, always finding the right way to encourage her diverse students and bring out the best in Ali. When she reads his angry poems, she tells Ali about how Malcolm X once felt revengeful but then travelled to Mecca and realized all of humanity were his brothers.

In fact, there are comments from many characters, even Ali himself, that, while certainly reflective of contemporary North American society, might also be just too contrived, too sanctimonious. In his angry phase, Ali tells Zach he’s “too white” to understand his grief. The school principal declares that she hates the word tolerate because she strives to accept others. A senior who rescues the family from the plaza attack solemnly intones, “Our words matter” when corrected to use the word Indigenous instead of American Indian. Even his grandfather gets in on the action, warning him that “brown” boys run the risk of getting in trouble with the police in ways white boys would not, and declaring his awareness of discrimination against Black people in his new country. (The exact setting is not identified; while the mention of a Square One shopping mall suggests it takes place in Mississauga, Ontario, the absence of cold weather seems to suggest a warmer and perhaps American clime).

Happily, the story’s climax provides a creative and upbeat solution to the racial tension. Ali’s friends, including the ones who’d excluded him, quietly decide to fast for a single day in solidarity with their Muslim peers. The Eid party is a triumph, and all the major players show up and are extremely supportive. Ali reads one of his poems to great acclaim, and even his father is pleased, having learned that Ali’s favorite rapper is also a medical doctor. The popular and rich girl he has a crush on, Melissa, confesses she likes him. Ali is nervous about performing a poem as valedictorian, but, at the last minute, he adds a rousing chorus of “Together, we will rise” which gets the whole assembly on their feet.

In the end, Call Me Al is a story that is original, engrossing, and inspiring that occasionally becomes a bit too pat for its own good, hitting all the expected notes to make it fit in perfectly with contemporary school curricula. It will certainly find its place.