This book is powerful.  The repetition, the message, the rhythm, it is something kids of all ages need to hear, and hear often. 

The concept of positive self-talk, is brought to life in the short, simple, straightforward sentences per page, and shown with illustrations of children dreaming big.  If you can dream it, you can achieve it.  Turning impossible to “I’m possible,” and not getting brought down by others laughing at your dreams.  The book shows that hard work is needed too.  You start with Bismillah, help others when you can, and brush yourself off and get back up when you fall.

With a forward by Muhammad Ali’s daughter, Maryum “May May” Ali, and written by a Mother and her daughter who at 10 started her own hijab brand for Teens and Tweens, the book isn’t just reassuring words, it is meant to inspire action and confidence.

I could see teachers reading this 32 page book weekly to their students, aged preschool and up.  It might start to get cheesy for older kids, but they need it too, possibly even more.  I have read it to my children, and when they’ve had hard days asked them to read it to them selves.  It helps, it really does.

My only criticism of the book is the superficial stuff.  The binding, page quality, and size are fine, but the text is small, and the illustrations are a bit off.  Not bad per say, what they show is actually wonderful, but the faces on some of the kids are misshapen and not uniform in size, and when they are all standing next to each other they look like they have been copy and pasted together, not that there was a single illustrator.  I hesitate to criticize the illustrations, but the book is an important one, and the diversity the pictures show is powerful, really powerful, that I would have hoped for a $15 book the pictures would have been a bit better.  While at the same time, I understand that the book may only have gotten published going this route and for that I am grateful that it exists.  InshaAllah if more people support these types of books and messages, the publishing quality will improve, and all of us will benefit.