Jiddo's Treasure Chambers: A beautifully illustrated children's tale of hope, heritage, and life in Gaza

When Palestinian rapper Stryder was approached in 2024 by publisher Tiny Traveller Books to write a children's book about Palestine, he was surprised.

Sure, the 36-year-old Rotterdam-based artist had been telling stories about Palestine through rap and spoken word since the age of 15, but he had never written a book before.

However, in light of Israel's genocide in Gaza, Stryder, which is the Dutch moniker the artist goes by, meaning 'warrior,' says he felt a sense of urgency to take on the project.

Two years later, the end result has reached the world. Jiddo's Treasure Chambers is the spell-binding story of ten-year-old Amal, who has been displaced from Jabalia in North Gaza to the South. She finds hope in the stories her Jiddo (grandfather) tells her each day.

It is clear that the story is set during the ongoing genocide in Gaza; the family lives together in a makeshift tent, her father stands in a queue every day for hours to bring back a pot of lentil soup, and the story describes the incessant sound of Israeli drones and airstrikes.

Beautiful illustrations by Copenhagen-based Palestinian artist Omar Al Sayed bring each page of the story to life.

The publishers discovered Omar on Instagram, where he has been raising awareness of the situation in Gaza and wider Palestine through illustration for the past three years.

"I fell in love with the story immediately," Omar tells The New Arab. "And my visually functioning brain already started to create all these images in my mind while I am going further with the reading."

The story is multi-layered: as well as shining a light on the situation in Gaza, Jiddo's stories introduce readers to the history of Palestine since the Second World War.

Through the eyes of a 10-year-old Jiddo, we are shown how he and his family once lived in Jaffa, where his father grew the city's famous oranges.

He tells the story of the Palestinians who welcomed Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the Second World War, sharing their food and homes with them, before Jiddo and his family were pushed out of their home in 1948, settling in Gaza.

The chapters switch between the POVs of Amal and Jiddo, so young readers get a glimpse of Palestine past and present.

"Not only did I want it to be about Gaza now, but I also wanted it to be about how we ended up in this situation. It's partly based on my own story, on Palestinian history and from what I have been seeing in Gaza," explains Stryder.

Some of the characters were based on real people in Gaza, Stryder shares with The New Arab.

Khalid Nabhan, who moved the entire world as the grandfather who called his beloved granddaughter Reem, 'Soul of my soul,' actually inspired the character of Jiddo. Both grandfather and granddaughter were killed by Israeli airstrikes.

"When I was writing the story, I had Reem's grandfather in mind because, how do you describe such a special person? The feeling he gave me as a grandfather, I thought his character feels like the character of Jiddo," Stryder adds. 

"I came up with the concept of a grandfather who tells stories to his granddaughter. In that way, you can tell more than one story. You can talk about the genocide now; you can talk about 1948 and how it all developed. That was very important to me."

Writing a children's book on such a heavy topic — eight decades of the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians — in a language that is accessible to young readers was a challenge; however, Stryder has accomplished it.

From describing the zanana (piercing, ringing) sound of drones as the furious, deranged wasps to describing Amal's feelings of anger as a furious volcano ready to erupt, Stryder has managed to convey how a child in Gaza experiences their world.

"It's always challenging to transfer the feelings of myself and the feelings of the Palestinian people in a creative way so that other people understand it," he says.  

The illustrations do the story more than justice, the warmth of Jiddo's character shining through. Omar beautifully brings Jiddo's story of Malik and the wise old olive tree to life, as if it were a fairy tale.

Small details like the glowing light of oil lamps, moonlight illuminating a Palestinian village at night, or smoke rising from a soup pot really bring the pages to life.

"The process was long, emotional and challenging," Omar shares.

"We created the character, we edited, we recreated, and moved on. I had the liberty to be creative and make decisions on my own for how the scene should look. All I had to start with was the text and the book size. I read the story again and again, I dived deep between the lines, stopped at each word, and was lost between its chapters."

The ending of Jiddo's Treasure Chambers is rather ambiguous, with Stryder intentionally leaving it open to interpretation.

With her name befittingly meaning 'hope' in Arabic, Jiddo tells Amal that in her and the children of Palestine, he finds hope for the country's future. She asks how to change the world, and he tells her all she needs to do is close her eyes and dream.

A bright light fills the tent, and suddenly Reem finds herself in a peaceful place on the coast, standing beside crates of Jaffa oranges, where she meets Jiddo and her best friend, Huda, whom she had left behind when fleeing North Gaza.

She also meets the wise old olive tree from Jiddo's story. Has she teleported herself into a liberated Palestine? Or is the reality grimmer: was the tent hit by an airstrike, transporting Amal and Jiddo to heaven?

"It's a possible outcome, but I want it to be a hopeful open ending," says Stryder.

"If you look at the story, Amal finds hope in the stories of her Jiddo, but Jiddo also finds hope in her, his granddaughter. Even if she were dead, it feels okay, they have peace with their naseeb (fate)," he adds. 

"I didn't want the story to end without hope, so I chose to write an ending that can be interpreted in different ways."

As the Israeli regime continues to demolish Palestinian homes, illegally settle on Palestinian land and murder Palestinians, the responsibility falls on Palestinians in the diaspora to keep telling the world Palestinian stories.

Storytelling has and always will be an integral way of preserving Palestinian history and identity. For Palestine to remain in global consciousness, storytelling must begin with children.

"Storytelling has always been a part of my work," says Stryder.

"I want to tell children that it's very important to tell our own stories. Our history has been written out of the history books. Telling them about the Nakba, that's something we don't learn in the Netherlands, so that's one thing that I want to tell them," he adds. 

"The other thing I want to tell children is that resilience can keep you alive. We talk a lot about the Palestinian people being very resilient; they find hope in every situation. I want to give that to the next generation. A new world is only possible if we have hope of changing the world that we live in now," Stryder continues. 

"That's why I wanted to end the story with Amal in a liberated Palestine, because she started in a very hopeless situation. I want to teach children that a new world is only possible when you have hope."

Jiddo's Treasure Chambers is published by Tiny Traveller Books and is available to order now.

Yousra Samir Imran is a British-Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press

Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA