The Sandwich Swap

Nor­mal­ly, I spurn pic­ture books writ­ten by celebri­ties, be they actors or roy­al­ty or what have you. If it’s a per­son in the head­lines, I quite assume they could not pos­si­bly write a wor­thy pic­ture book. The only excep­tion on my shelves, I believe (and I real­ize there are oth­er excep­tions! Feel free to leave titles in the com­ments.) is The Sand­wich Swap by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdul­lah with Kel­ly Depuc­chio, illus­trat­ed by Tri­cia Tusa.

I adore this book and have read it to many groups of kids. It’s about two best friends, Salma and Lily, who do most every­thing togeth­er — they draw, they swing, they jump rope. And every day they eat lunch togeth­er — Lil­ly always has a peanut but­ter and jel­ly sand­wich on squishy white bread, and Salma always has a hum­mus sand­wich on pita bread. Secret­ly, they each find their friend’s choice of sand­wich mys­ti­fy­ing. Gooey peanut paste? Ew Gross! Icky chick­pea paste? Ew yuck! But they don’t say this to each other.

Until one day they do. Lily blurts out her feel­ings about Salma’s sandwich.

Salma frowned. She looked down at the thin, soft bread, and she thought of her beau­ti­ful, smil­ing moth­er as she care­ful­ly cut Salma’s sand­wich in two neat halves that morn­ing. 

The next line is the most bril­liant in the book, I think: Her hurt feel­ings turned to mad.

Isn’t that how it goes? Once, when I read this in sto­ry time a lit­tle boy smacked his fore­head with his hands and said, “Oh no!”

Oh no, is right — Salma snaps back with hurt­ful words about the gross­ness and offen­sive smell of Lily’s sandwich.

Lily looked sur­prised. She sniffed the thick, squishy bread, and she thought of her dad in his sil­ly apron, whistling as he cut Lily’s sand­wich into two per­fect tri­an­gles that morning.

Well, the dis­agree­ment is per­son­al and hurt­ful, and the friends part ways after a few more hurt­ful exchanges. No more pic­ture draw­ing, swing­ing, and jump rop­ing. They don’t eat togeth­er, they don’t talk…and the pic­tures are exquis­ite — two deflat­ed girls with­out their best friend.

Meanwhile…the sto­ry spread and every­one in the lunch­room began to choose sides around the peanut but­ter and hum­mus sandwiches.

Pret­ty soon the rude insults had noth­ing at all to do with peanut but­ter or hummus.

“That’s so dumb!” said one out­raged girl I was read­ing to.  I nod­ded vague­ly and turned the page to the two-page spread of a food fight right there in the lunch­room. “See!” said the girl. She held her head as if she had the worst headache.

This is how wars start, peo­ple! Inter­est­ing­ly, every time I look for this book on my shelf I’m look­ing for the title “The Sand­wich War” and am then remind­ed that the actu­al title is more…peaceful. As is the book in the end.

Salma and Lily come to their sens­es as pud­ding cups and car­rot sticks whip past their heads. They’re required to help clean up the mess and they’re sent to the principal’s office, as well. Again, the illus­tra­tions car­ry the feel­ings — two small girls, made small­er by all that has happened.

The next day, brave Salma sits down across from Lily at lunch. In return, Lily works up the courage to ask Salma if she’d like to try her peanut but­ter and jel­ly sand­wich. A swap occurs, as well as glad excla­ma­tions of the yum­mi­ness of each oth­ers sandwiches.

The girls hatch a plan, which is depict­ed entire­ly in a gor­geous pull-out three page spread.

When I read this to kids, we looks at all the flags and try to iden­ti­fy them. We won­der what food was brought to rep­re­sent each coun­try. I’ve always want­ed to have such a potluck after the book, but although I’ve been to such potlucks, I nev­er seem to have the book with me at the right time. Per­haps I just need to car­ry it around in my purse… Or cre­ate such an event!