Eli and the Uncles

Say hello and good night to Uncle Hanif, Uncle Rashin, Uncle Nooru . . . and five more uncles, along with their spectacular beards!

Young Eli gets to spend a whole day with his eight adoring uncles--each one bigger and taller than the last, and each with an outsized personality to match, from Aman the dancer to Riz the joke teller. Even better, every one of the uncles sports his own unique set of whiskers! Short or long, curly or straight, bristly or soft, whatever the style or texture, every especially elegant beard is a sight to behold (and a sleepy-time aid for Eli as he says his good-nights one by one). With delightful warmth and whimsy, author Jehan Madhani and award-winning illustrator Rashin Kheiriyehpresent a hilarious, hirsute countdown to bedtime that will have young readers and listeners dreaming of woolly beards instead of woolly sheep.

Jehan Madhani is a South Asian-American writer and cartoonist for audiences big and small. She was the recipient of the Lee & Low 2020 New Voices Honor for an original picture book manuscript and was a fellow in the inaugural class of the Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room. As a TV writer, she has been Emmy-nominated for her work on Karma’s World on Netflix. Her work can be seen across a number of shows, including Deepa & Anoop, Get Rolling with Otis, and Charlie’s Colorforms City. Jehan Madhani lives in Brooklyn with a family of unappreciative cats whom she repatriated from her parents’ Houston, Texas, garage.

Rashin Kheiriyeh is an award-winning author-illustrator, animator, and painter who has more than ninety children’s books to her credit. Her books have been published in at least twelve countries, and she was nominated for the 2023 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to children’s literature. She was a 2017 Maurice Sendak Fellow and is the recipient of a Bologna Ragazzi Honorable Mention. She is also the character artist for the most popular animation series on national television in Iran, called Shekarestan (Sugarland). A native of Iran, Rashin Kheiriyeh now lives in Washington, DC. You can learn more about her at www.rashinart.com.