ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A Somali girl who lives in Rochester was the
inspiration for an illustrator's new children's book.
Zeinab Hasan, 18,
has been in the United States since 1991. But when she arrived, Hasan
faced many challenges, and illustrator Marie Fritz Perry took notice of
all the things Hasan would have to overcome when she visited Hasan's fifth
grade classroom as an artist-in residence.
``She was the one who really struck me as having the most to overcome
and the most to deal with in an effort to fit in,'' Fritz Perry said.
Fritz Perry, of Northfield, kept in contact with Hasan. Then the girl
became the inspiration for Fritz Perry's first children's book about a
Somali girl named Sadia. In the book, ``A Gift for Sadia,'' the girl lives
in Rochester and befriends an injured Canada goose on Silver Lake. Later
in the book, the goose helps Sadia.
