Abeer Al Taher is a pioneer of children’s literature in the Arab world and a member of the Jordanian Federation of Writers and Literacies.
Abir completed high school at Victoria School in Alexandria and then she got a bachelor’s degree in education from the American Lebanese University in Lebanon.
She attended several specialized courses in Children’s Literature at “Lowa State” University in the United States. Her presence abroad allowed her to see the evolution of child’s literature in terms of creative writing, drawing, and design methods. She was one of the first to use the concept of integrated painting on two opposite pages (spreads).
She began her writing career in 1999 by presenting the Series “Yasmine” which is close to children’s life and addresses their daily lives, experiences, and attitudes. The stories of this series were inspired by her experience with her children. This series has been highly successful and widely appreciated, allowing it to spread widely to be one of the most popular series in libraries and schools.
Because of the lack of good Arabic content for children and their reluctance to read and approach foreign and translated content, Abeer took on a new task and she established Al Yasmine for Publishing and Distribution House in 2010, which is specialized in publishing children’s books in Arabic, through which it proceeds to different ages: from 3 to 16 years and some of its books have been adopted in school curricula in Egypt and the Arab Gulf.
After that, Abeer Al Taher launched another series which is called “Ahmad Al-Aqqad” it is an adventure series about Ahmad, a boy who has a wide imagination and an adventurous spirit. Abeer didn’t only present Al-Aqqad stories in the form of adventures and suspense, she also linked these adventures to science fiction and added factual and useful information into them, so that she was able to blend the imagination into reality in an attractive and entertaining way. Ahmad Al-Aqqad’s series was a remarkable success that spread across the Arab world, and many reprints were issued.
Abeer Al Taher participated in many story readings around the world, as well as in many book fairs in the Arab Gulf and the Middle East.
Abeer Al Taher is a multi-award-winning author. In 2010 she was nominated for Etisalat Award for her story “On the Roof”, and in 2014 she won in Etisalat Award for the book “A Very Naughty Cat”, which was translated into several languages. She was the first Jordanian to receive this award.
Her Publishing House won a lot of prestigious awards and some of their releases reached the shortlist.
She got Etisalat Awards for the following releases: “A Very Naughty Cat”, “Wild Poppies”, and “The Orange Ball”, some of them reached the shortlist such as “Farida”, “Princess Dana”, and “On the Roof”.
“A Very Naughty Cat” got the White Raven label from the World Youth Library Munich.
She won the Sharjah Prize for: “Me and Him”, and “Every day’s Prize”.
She got the Forum Award for the story “Don’t Call Animals Out Loud, and “Adnan and Ramadan Dish”.
The Publishing House co-created several books in collaboration with “Room to Read”, a non-profit organization that aims to educate less privileged children, especially girls, which has led to the distribution of more than 500,000 books to refugees.
Al Yasmine House was created for only one purpose, which is motivating Arab children to read by showcasing fun stories that match our time and that correspond to the contemporary ideas of this generation.
To this day, Al Yasmine House has published more than 90 children’s and young adult books by authors from the Middle East and by illustrators from around the world. And its books were translated into different languages. Abeer Al Taher still seeking to provide more publications close to the child’s consciousness, although she is modern, she doesn’t forget to link children to their origins to bring them closer to their language and identity to become proud of it.