The feedback Fritz Perry has received for A Gift for Sadia, which she also illustrated, has come from a diverse audience, from recent Somali immigrants to native Minnesotans looking to learn more about Somali culture. But after befriending and feeding an injured Canada goose, Sadia gains a new friend as well as the ability to embrace her new life in Rochester. In the heart of winter, Sadia finds the cold, her classmates, and her new school hard to understand. That inspiration led Fritz Perry to write A Gift for Sadia, a children’s book that tells the story of a young Somali immigrant girl living in Rochester who feels isolated and alone in a new community. “Working with those kids reminded me of that little girl, and it felt like we hadn’t made much progress in the past 20 years – and it inspired me.” “When I was in 4th grade, there was a wonderful Hmong girl in my class, and I spent the whole year trying to get to know her but language was a huge barrier, and it was really frustrating,” says Fritz Perry. The experience made Fritz Perry realize how isolated the non-native speakers were The students, who were from countries as far-flung as Romania and Vietnam, spoke no English but quickly embraced the idea of expressing themselves through the universal language of art. When Marie Fritz Perry showed up for her first day as an artist-in-residence at Harriet Bishop Elementary School, she was in for a surprise: the principal informed her that the first class she would be working with was made up entirely of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students.
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