IF IT can snow in Baghdad, why not in Singapore?

Malaysian lecturer Masturah Alatas' The Girl Who Made It Snow In Singapore takes its whimsical cue from recent climate changes and spins it into a thought-provoking children?s story that tackles such big issues as culture, ethnicity and, of course, the weather.

The book, launched at the Singapore Writer's Festival last December, follows the journey of Ariana Hashim, a Muslim schoolgirl, through her adolescence.

The heroine, along with her entire school, discovers one morning while she is singing the national anthem that her magical voice can change the weather in seasonless Singapore.

But she is quickly hushed by the authorities who forbid her to use her weather-altering powers, but not from simply singing.

Speaking on the phone from Macerata, Italy, where she teaches the English language at a university, Masturah, 41, says: "When I told my sons the gist of the story, they thought it was the wackiest story they had ever heard.

"But when they kept asking me what was going to happen to Ariana, I knew that a character was born and that I had a story which worked."

The writer, who grew up and studied in Singapore, is married to Giorgio Mariani, a professor in American literature. Their sons are Giordano, 14, and Dario, 12.

As Ariana develops her voice over the years, she faces criticism when she sings tunes associated with other religions and nationalities.

Working on the story's absurd premise, Masturah pursues what happens to the protagonist with measure and biting Singaporean logic.

And what emerges is an allegory of cultural integration.

"Ariana, with the support of her father, learns to sing Ave Maria, among other songs from all over the world,? she says.

With a political message that is pertinent but hardly didactic, she delivers many questions but leaves no easy answers.

Why and how did you blur the racial identity of Ariana?

Let's break away from stereotyping ethnicities.

The illustrator Gerbie Santos Pabilonia did only black-and-white drawings to avoid racial categorisation. We just didn't want any colour.

What is your take on Singapore's inter-cultural relations?

Why don't Indian kids in school learn Chinese, for example? I'm not being polemical here or suggesting that's what they have to do.

But with globalisation it's time to move beyond just being a salad bowl where different cultures co-exist but there is limited borrowing from one another. I feel that children in Singapore have a great potential for cultural crossovers.

The Girl Who Made It Snow In Singapore ($14.98 with GST) is available at major bookstores.