The late Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid is the subject of a picture book that follows her from a childhood full of creativity and imagination and ideas and observations about the natural world to a young woman who loves math and wants to build cities and studies to be an architect. When she opens her own company, “Zaha’s designs don’t look like other designs. Her buildings swoosh and zoom and flow and fly. 'The world is not a rectangle.’” But no one wants to build what she designs, until suddenly they do: building after building inspired by what she has noticed all her life, shapes and patterns and movement found in the natural world. A spare, lyrical tribute to the architect’s work and her tireless creativity weaves in quotes from Hadid and concludes by identifying some of her best-known buildings, referenced in the main narrative and shown again in thumbnails for visual reference. The stylized illustrations in Winters’s trademark, clean, warm style wonderfully convey moments of Hadid’s life and the direct inspiration of nature in her work. (Ages 5-9)

A Washington Post Best Children’s Book of 2017
Parents’ Choice Recommended

Get to know Zaha Hadid in this nonfiction picture book about the famed architect’s life and her triumph over adversity from celebrated author-illustrator Jeanette Winter.

Zaha Hadid grew up in Baghdad, Iraq, and dreamed of designing her own cities. After studying architecture in London, she opened her own studio and started designing buildings. But as a Muslim woman, Hadid faced many obstacles. Determined to succeed, she worked hard for many years, and achieved her goals—and now you can see the buildings Hadid has designed all over the world.