BACKGROUND & MISSION

Hello and welcome to Pomegranate Publishing!

My name is Moujan Adl, author of A Girl Named Mithra: A Poem About Yalda, the Winter Solstice.

When I was a little girl, my family moved from Iran to America. I was the only Iranian-American in my elementary school in the small coastal town in Southern California where I grew up. Outside of my family life, I did not see my family’s culture or heritage reflected in much of the world around me, and certainly not in children’s literature or media. Now, as an adult and a teacher at an elementary school, I want to offer children and families books that celebrate the beauty of Iranian identity.

In A Girl Named Mithra, the star of the book, Mithra, recalls a Yalda celebration with her mother and describes the sights, sounds, and tastes of a magical winter solstice night that marks the dawn of a new day. The book, written in verse, includes a beautiful translation to Persian that can be enjoyed by those who can read or understand the language that so naturally lends itself to poetry.

I believe that through sharing cultural stories like this, we can recognize how connected we all are and together work toward a more light-filled world.