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Teach using Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed – winner of Pop Culture Classroom’s Excellence in Graphic Literature Book of the Year Award in 2024!

Shubeik Lubeik presents a fascinating glimpse into a world where the ability to wish for anything your heart desires is not only common, but bought, sold, and regulated. The ambitious and gripping graphic novel shows the many sides of Egypt and its citizens through magical realism, presenting readers with nuanced commentary on class, bureaucracy, mental health, religion, colonialism, and so much more.

Pop Culture Classroom’s teaching guide for Shubeik Lubeik — aligned to Common Core standards for grades 9-12 — explores the book’s themes, characters, and settings.

Using the projects and discussion questions in this guide, students will:

• Learn more about Middle Eastern and Egyptian culture and lore
• Examine complex story structure and character development
• Build empathy for others of different classes, ages, and value systems
• Examine the concept of Graphic Medicine, and learn how Shubeik Lubeik and other graphic novels fit within it.

In modern-day Cairo, an impoverished widow, a wealthy college student, a middle-class kiosk owner, and his elderly customer lead lives that could not be more different from one another. Separated by class, religion, and lived experience, they each have desires—happiness, health, and wealth—that seem impossible to attain in their current circumstances without magic or divine intervention.

As it turns out, Shokry the kiosk owner happens to have three first-class wishes for sale which could, just maybe, help each person solve their problems.

Educators of high school and college-age students will find a bounty of content to analyze in this beautifully illustrated and deeply thoughtful graphic novel. While the book explores its themes through a uniquely MENA (Middle Eastern North African) lens, the story of human struggle and growth has a global resonance, and students from all walks of life will find something to relate to.

For educators looking for deep, engaging, and approachable literature that will challenge and enhance students’ perception of the world, Shubeik Lubeik is not to be missed.