Meet Little Amal: A puppet celebrating New York City's roots

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City's latest celebrity visitor is stopping traffic even in this jaded, larger-than-life town.

Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee, is on a 17-day blitz through every corner of the Big Apple as part of a theater project hoping to raise awareness about immigration.

“When we talk about migration and refugees, we tend to forget that more than half of the people we’re talking about are children,” said playwright and director Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artistic director of Little Amal Walks NYC. "The reality is they’re children and all children are beautiful in their own special way. And I think that’s what Amal brings to the table."

She will visit tourists meccas — Times Square, Grand Central Station, the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park, among them — and also communities far from the glitz of Manhattan, like Corona in the Queens borough and Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.