Salwa On the Way to School Written by Bassam Altaji Illustrated by Sasha Haddad

Parent and Teacher guide One day on the way to school Nader and his sister Aziza find a cat stuck on a high tree branch. They save the cat and Nader hides it in his school bag. During the lesson, the cat jumps out of the bag, and the children are delighted with its antics.

At home, they hide the cat in Nader’s room. When Dad comes to read them a story, his cat allergy starts playing up and makes him sneeze repeatedly. Suddenly the cat escapes from her hiding place and their secret is out. The next day scratching sounds are heard at the door.

When Mom opens the door, they find that the cat Mom has come to take her kitten back with her. - What will you do if you find a cat stuck high up on a tree branch? - Are we ever allowed to take our pets to school?

- Why did the Dad start sneezing? - What can people be allergic to? - What activity do you enjoy doing with your Dad? - How did the mother cat know how to find her kitten?

- If you were in Nader’s place would you keep the kitten or reunite it with its mother? About the Author Bassam Taji was born in 1967. He spent most of his childhood in Kuwait. In school, he distinguished himself in art and loved to invent things.

As a child, he dreamt of building and piloting a flying machine. He loved to make up stories to tell neighborhood children making them heroes of the stories he told. He studied and lived in Hungary but came back to settle in Jordan after 23 years. A few years back an old childhood neighbor called him and said, “In the stories, you told us, I was always the deep-sea diver, explorer in your stories.

I wanted you to know that thanks to your inspirational stories, I have now become a diver and have participated in discovering a pharaonic city under the sea… Thank you.” Two years ago, Bassam started writing children's stories as a hobby and realized a side of himself he had not known before. About the Illustrator Sasha Haddad is a Lebanese illustrator who has been working professionally since she graduated