Shabanu has justly won many awards. It was a 1990 Newbery Honor Book, an American Library Association (ALA) Notable Children's Book, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, a Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book, an International Reading Association (IRA) Teachers' Choice, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and an International Board of Books for Youth's Honor List Book in 1992. The wide recognition accorded this book suggests the excellence of its literary qualities.

Staples writes in the present tense firstperson point of view to enable readers to feel a sense of immediacy, a desire to know more about Shabanu, and a feeling of sympathy with her plight. The plot, although slow-paced in parts because life in the desert is necessarily slower paced than life in contemporary urban centers, nevertheless provides exciting and different twists...