This 32 page picture book for preschool and up is silly and fun. There is nothing Islamic in the text or illustrations by this Muslim author, but there is Arab culture as it mentions molokhiya and zaatar. The large 8.5 x 11 hardback book is wonderfully illustrated with detail, color and expression. The playful font and text makes reading it fun and enjoyable for little ones, who will get the message, and laugh along the way.
Noura loves watermelon. She eats it in the morning and in the afternoon and in the evening too. At dinner she doesn’t want to eat her chicken, rice and molokhiya, she just wants watermelon.
That night after dinner she sneaks to the kitchen, sees a huge watermelon on the table, and decides to take it up to her room to enjoy all by herself. She puts the watermelon under her bed, and dreams wonderful watermelon dreams.
The watermelon gets bigger and bigger, and there is a door! She goes inside the watermelon and eats until her hearts content. But as she gets bigger, the watermelon gets smaller. She is trapped and her tummy is hurting.
Her mother rushes in to find a watermelon under the bed and Noura screaming from a bad dream. Resolved to deal with the magic watermelon in the morning, Noura goes back to sleep having learned her lesson (without being reprimanded), and happily eats her breakfast of a fried egg and zaatar.
The book concludes with some information about watermelons and info about molokhiya and zaatar.
Part of me is tempted to channel my own Cranky Kareem and say how awful this book is, just because I know that the author reads my reviews of her books with bated breath, but alas I cannot lie even in jest as the book is truly adorable. This 40 page book in a new series highlights and starts to fill the gap in children’s Islamic fiction that is so needed. There are a number of books and series for toddlers teaching them to say Bismillah, Assalamualaikum, and MashaAllah and all the praise-filled Islamic expressions, but they are very basic, this book, and hopefully the rest of the series, goes a bit deeper. It shows how to truly mean what you say, how to glorify Allah not just in your words, but in the way you think about things, handle stresses, and carry on. The concepts and amount of text probably will most appeal to mature kindergarteners to early second graders at bedtime or in small groups. I do wish that Cranky Kareem apologized to Happy Hamdi after he relentlessly attacked him at the masjid, but in much the way Oscar the Grouch gets away with being so negative, the characters in the book and the readers alike will have to settle for Kareem finally learning the lesson, in this case, of being grateful to Allah (swt) for everything.
The book starts out with Happy Hamdi waking up in Salamville and praising Allah in appreciation of the fresh air, birds, flowers, and allergy medicine that works. Across town Cranky Kareem is having the opposite kind of morning. The sun is blinding, the birds annoying, coffee bitter, and he’s out of milk for his cereal.
When Kareem finally finds some peace and quiet on a bench at the park he is disturbed by Happy Hamdi and all his happiness. As Hamdi and bounces off to talk to Greedy Gamal and Healthy Hassan, Cranky Kareem gets an idea.
When Happy Hamdi heads to the masjid, Cranky Kareem sticks out his foot to trip him. Hamdi falls and gets a bruise on his nose, but still says Alhumdulillah. He then knocks sticky baklava on him and again he responds with Alhumdulillah, he then dumps a bucket of ice water on Hamdi, and Happy Hamdi says Alhumdulillah once more. When he leaves the masjid, Hamdi’s car is not working and he has to walk home.
Kareem can’t take it anymore and confronts Hamdi. Happy Hamdi explains that he was hungry and didn’t mind the syrup, then the water washed the syrup off and now that he is walking home, his fur is drying. Flabbergasted by Happy Hamdi, Cranky Kareem stomps off.
Convinced that Hamdi’s happiness is an act, Kareem pauses to ponder how his plan failed. Healthy Hassan jogs by and bumps in to him, knocking him off the train track and causing Kareem to twist his ankle, just before a train goes swooshing by.
Realizing that the bump saved his life, Cranky Kareem expresses his appreciation to Allah swt by saying Alhumdulillah.
I love the illustrations and the horizontal layout of the book. The book is cute and I can’t wait to share the rest of the series with my kids. Thank you to Crescent Moon Store for having this, and so many wonderful books available.
This 40 page celebration of diversity within the label “brown” is a sweet and powerful book that shows how the color of our skin is beautiful and perfect while at the same time making it clear that who we are and what we can be is not defined by our appearance. The book shows adorably illustrated brown children finding strength in different cultures, clothing, religions, languages and dreams, which will hopefully empower children everywhere (and of all colors) to take labels that may have negative connotations and turn them in to positive affirmations of identity and strength. There isn’t a story with a plot, but with the regular inclusion of a girl with a scarf on, and the mention of a mosque, I thought to highlight it. The book is perfect for preschool and up.
The book starts with a little girl identifying herself as brown, beautiful and being perfect. It then stretches to her being love, friendship and happiness.
From there it branches out to a whole cast of kids identifying the variety of things they can be, from a writer to an electrician to a prime minister. the same kids then do and make and work on things before identifying where they come from and what languages they speak.
The kids all have different hair on their heads and faces and even no hair at all. They live in different dwellings, they like to do different things.
Brown people are not a monolith, the kids show that they eat different foods in different ways, that they wear different clothes.
People with brown skin are roommates and teachers and friends and classmates. Some go to temple or church, others a mosque or shrine, some not at all.
The book ends with a close up of three smiling faces proclaiming, “I am brown. I am amazing. I am You.”
I’m sure people will argue that if you switch out white for brown the book would be deemed racist, and you are correct it would be. But as a group that is marginalized as “other” and often the darker brown you are with in the brown subset moves you “value” and “worth” down, makes a book celebrating the strength and beauty of “brown” so necessary and heart warming. I personally am the lightest “brown” imaginable being only half Pakistani. So, believe me I have privilege in the desi community, but I don’t find this book offensive at all. I’ve read this book at least a dozen times and my impressions alternate between beaming with pride and tears that so many beautiful people feel less than because of skin color and yes, anger too, that people are MADE to feel less than. May we all be more inclusive, more loving, and more open to the diversity of the human being. Ameen.
This 40 page true story about Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel of Aleppo aka the Cat Man shows how one person can make a difference even in the middle of a war. The amount of text on the page, the topic covered, and the detailed illustrations will most appeal to second graders and up, but younger kids, particularly those that love animals, will enjoy the story as well.
Alaa loves his city: the markets, the foods, the people. When war comes, he doesn’t flee, he keeps working as an ambulance driver. He has a big heart. His sees destroyed neighborhoods where everyone has left, except for the cats. There is no one to feed them and give them water, and Alaa feels for them.
After his shift he buys meat, and feeds over a dozen cats. He does this everyday and soon a dozen turns in to fifty and he realizes that he can no longer care for the cats alone. He needs a place for them.
Word spreads and volunteers and donations start pouring in. He purchases a building with a shaded courtyard and soon cats are everywhere. When people leave Aleppo they bring their beloved cats to him, and even other animals start arriving. Alaa even builds a playground for the children and digs a well so everyone can have fresh water.
The book is pretty straightforward and steady, it doesn’t have much emotion for such a powerful true story, but it will still hit the mark in inspiring children to show kindness and compassion for animals and others.
There are notes from each other and the illustrator at the end that share light on their connection to the story and the situation in Syria. There is nothing religious in the book other than a few females in hijab.
This 36 page early chapter book is a good introduction to the concept that one person can make a difference. The seven chapters flow easily, and while the names of the cities, Freshtown and Dumpton are a little on the nose and the premise a bit of a stretch, fluent 1st and second grader readers will enjoy the story and delightful pencil illustrations of a kid changing things for the better and making a difference. One blatant hole for me was the lack of outright Islamic preaching. For a book that is not available in mainstream outlets here the US and only through Islamic book stores, I expected more than just a Muslim family with hijabi characters and Islamic names. I wanted cleaning up the environment and doing good deeds to have hadith and ayats quoted and referenced throughout, but alas there are none. So, I suppose the book isn’t “Islamic Fiction.” but, in my opinion it really could and should be.
SYNOPSIS:
Aliyah and her family have just moved to a new city, Dumpton. Transferred by her father’s work, the family is shocked by the trash, smell, garbage and flies everywhere. The kind neighbor lady brings them a pie and welcomes them to the neighborhood, but is later seen throwing a candy wrapper out the window. Aliyah is shocked that such a nice lady is also a litterbug. Aliyah calls a family meeting to come up with a plan to clean up Dumpton.
Each day Aliyah tries something new: cleaning up the street she lives on by herself, letting people know about littering, putting up signs, and finally on day four forming a clean up crew. But nothing works. Aliyah gets discouraged, but her parents encourage her to do the right thing no matter what.
The night before the first day of school Aliyah has an idea, she grabs a bunch of solid color t-shirts and a permanent marker and makes herself some shirts to encourage people to take care of their trash. Every day she wears a different one with a different saying and by the end of the week people are starting to ask her about them.
The following Monday, her brother joins her and wears a matching shirt to start the cycle again, but when she gets to school the two of them aren’t the only ones wearing yellow t-shirts that say “Littering Stinks.” Everyone is!
The principal calls her into the office to discuss the potential of children to change the pollution in their city and slowly but surely they get the city cleaned up.
WHY I LIKE IT:
I love that it encourages everyone, no matter how small, to make a differences and do what they can to make things better. I love that it doesn’t just happen and that she gets frustrated and has to power through and stay true to herself. The main character wears hijab, but there is no mention of religion or faith which would have added some depth to her as a character finding motivation from belief in a higher cause and a responsibility to the care of the Earth. Even some concern with starting at a new school as a hijabi would have possibly added some relatable connection to her personal strength and why she is willing to trust herself with the littering task at hand.
The premise that no one born and raised in the town seems to have a problem with the littering and pollution or that people from the outside haven’t been completely disgusted by it, but rather joined in over time, is a bit far fetched. Sure you could make the argument that in other countries this is how it is, but it seems like a bit of a leap given the setting of the book and the target audience.
FLAGS:
Clean, haha pun intended?
TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:
This book is an early chapter book, not to be confused as being a book for early readers. The sentences and diction and vocabulary are for fluid readers that are just moving into short chapters and need a few illustrations, spaced lines and a bit larger font. There are questions at the end which would make the book a great small group reading to discuss, but definitely for early elementary. Would be a great inclusion in a unit on leadership, project planning, or Earth Day.
This 32 page picture book about friends learning to appreciate each other is both silly and sweet. An AR 2.6 the book is great for preschool through third grade and gives lots of teachable moments along the way if you want to make it more than just a fun book. There is nothing religious, but I believe the author, who is also the illustrator, is Muslim.
Presto and Monty are best friends. Presto is a brilliant magician and Monty is good at singing, eating ice cream and making funny faces. When the carnival comes to town the two decide to put on a show and become famous.
Monty suggests they take turns being the star of the show, and Monty decides to go first. Monty isn’t a magician, so Presto stays behind the scenes to make sure the tricks work. Somehow, this is how it ends up going night after night after night. Presto never gets his turn.
Monty gets bossier and bossier, demanding things of Presto and being rude. Presto is no longer having fun. When Monty signs a contract to go on TV with his magic show, Presto has had enough and leaves.
When showtime rolls around, Monty realizes Presto has left and has to try and learn magic real quick. The show doesn’t get off to a good start when none of the magic tricks work. As the show goes from bad to worse Monty realizes how bad of a friend he has been.
Presto watching from home can no longer bare it and rushes to save the day. Monty promises things will be different and the two of them cook up a new act and realize together their show is perfect.
This adorable 32 page book about facing worries, anxiety, and fears is told in story format and meant for ages four and up. The personified monster isn’t scary, but he is big, and the little boy learns to talk about him to get him to shrink. The book is engaging, fun, and powerful. I had my teenager who has anxiety read it and she loved it, a few days later as she was forcing herself to get out of the car, she mentioned that she needed to make her monster small. Normalizing mental health, feeling like you aren’t alone, finding the words to explain to others how you feel, having empathy for those that are facing challenges, are all things the book conveys without being preachy or condescending. I think every child, parent, and caregiver, needs to be aware of what children are facing and find ways to be like the gran in the book and listen, so that children suffering aren’t doing so alone. The fact that the author is a Muslim celebrity chef in Britain and the protagonist is a boy with brown skin, makes the message that much more universal.
The book starts out with an unnamed boy introducing himself and his much bigger monster. He doesn’t know when the monster arrived, but it seems he has always been there, and the monster knows all about him.
The monster is big, and when he stands infront of the little boy, the little boy can only see his tummy. At night he snores too. When he asks his mom or dad or brother to take the monster away, the monster hides.
Over time the monster has gotten bossier. When the little boy is getting dressed or brushing his teeth or when he wants to play, the monster is always there, blocking him.
One day after school the monster was there and the little boy tried to lose it, but couldn’t. Gran asked what was wrong when he showed up crying, and the little boy told his grandma all about his monster.
Gran listened quietly and the more the little boy talks, the smaller the monster gets. Pretty soon the boy realizes he can make his monster go away. When he finds the monster later, the little monster is confused, so the boy puts him in his pocket.
The monster is always there, but the little boy can make him behave and he isn’t scary any more. At the end the boy is big, and the monster is little.
I love that the boy finds someone to talk to, and that he accepts that the monster may never leave. Even if you don’t have anxiety or worries, the book is a great metaphor that even little kids can understand to help them cope when stresses do occur. I love the large size of the book, the minimal text and the bright illustrations. Truly a great book that needs to be in classrooms and homes and anywhere kids are.
Set in Morrocco, the fictionalized framing of a children’s story about solar energy and sustainability at the the world’s largest solar plant in Ghassate will appeal to curious children in kindergarten and up. Told through the every day life of Jasmine, a little girl living near the plant, the concepts are not technical, but give a broad overview allowing readers to understand how impressive solar energy is, as well as the disparity that exists in the world. Over 40 pages with factual sidebars and an author’s note at the end, children who enjoy the story and are curious about the reality of it all will find an easy opportunity to learn more.
Jasmine and her friend Nadia live in Morocco between the High Atlas mountains and the huge Sahara desert. It is always sunny where they live.
They talk a lot about making energy from sunshine as they watch trucks going and coming from the world’s largest solar plant. Their teacher likes to ask them about the big changes happening in their world.
As the villagers tend to their sheep and cows, they cook on open fires and bake bread in clay ovens all while keeping an eye on the workers making the largest solar tower in the world. Jasmine’s dad rides a mule to work and many classmates parents work at the state of the art plant. The contrast is obvious.
The next day at school Miss Abdellam the teacher asks the students about sustainability. And the book doesn’t define the concept right away. First the class goes on a field trip to the solar plant.
At the plant the size of 3,500 soccer fields they see the 660,000 mirrors that follow the sun like sunflowers and bounce the rays to the 800 ft tower. The tower gets to a thousand degrees on top and heats water whose steam powers turbines and is turned into electricity.
The kids go home to work on their sustainability homework. With no internet or computers even, they have to think for themselves. The remaining pages define and provide examples of how solar power is changing life for the villagers and improving life for people not just in Morrocco or Northern Africa but potentially the entire world.
I love that the concept of sustainability isn’t just a definition it shows how it is in every day things, and those every day things lead to big things that are both tangible and ideological. The author/illustrator acknowledges his own surprise and bias when he learned that the largest solar power plant was in Nothern Africa. I love that some of the females wear hijab, and some do not, and that the teacher and some of the parents at the solar plant are female. There is nothing religious even mentioned in the book, but the visibly Muslim characters are empowering and honest for a story about science and Morocco.
This adorable 96 page book is a great early reader for second graders and up. The play on the concept of being an “alien” is filled with a lot of heart, humor, and thought provoking concepts on what it means to be human, have feelings, and be a good friend. There is nothing religious in this book by a Muslim author meant for all children, but with the name Jibreel and him being a refugee (“alien”) many Muslim children might assume and relate to his plight a little stronger.
SYNOPSIS:
Maxx the alien has come to Earth to understand human feelings. His trip was ok and landing successful, but he hasn’t heard from home and the Filandoo Sperk is broken. Told in diary form, the fart jokes start rights away as he lands in a cow pasture. He heads to a city disguised as a human and discovers chocolate. He also discovers Google and uses it to help him understand human emotions.
As he gets on public transportation he finds that humans smell different, and some are not so nice. At the park he finds how humans talk about baby dogs, he forgets the name for those, very odd, and love very gross. On Day 4 he makes a friend, Jibreel, who is looking at books and magazines about Aliens. He knows he isn’t supposed to talk to humans, but since no one from home is talking to him, he figures it might be ok. When the boys head outside they see two grown men fighting about a parking space and turning red, they punch each other and don’t stop until an old lady whacks them with her purse. Emotions are flying around everywhere and Maxx hopes Jibreel can help him understand it all.
Maxx and Jibreel head to the library the next day for the “All Things Alien Exhibit” and boy do we have it all wrong. As Maxx tries to correct the exhibit and explain the truth about aliens, Jibreel just finds him funnier and funnier, not believing that Maxx is from outer space.
The two boys become good friends and when bullies from Jibreel school start giving Jibreel a hard time, Maxx learns about hugs, and helping a friend out. Maxx starts having feelings. When the boys get called aliens and Maxx makes them both go invisible, Jibreel realizes Maxx is an alien from another planet and Maxx learns that Jibreel is a refugee. He also learns that Jibreel’s misses his mom who wasn’t able to escape with Jibreel and his brother, and is still back in their country.
Maxx makes the bullies look foolish to help Jibreel, but Jibreel is not happy and Maxx has to learn about being kind even when you really want to be mean. Now that Maxx is having all sorts of feelings, he too confides in Jibreel that he is worried about not hearing from home and Jibreel offers to help him fix the Filandoo Sperk.
The only problem is the spaceship after the initial tour, goes missing. And so are the bullies. I won’t completely spoil the ending, but there is a surprise and happy ending for everyone.
WHY I LIKE IT:
Oh I love how the story weaves feelings and emotions in with bullies and friendship in such a smart way. The book is silly with the fart humor and assumptions about aliens, but it really is clever. The vocabulary doesn’t talk down to the reader with words such as abomination and the observations of someone new to Earth offer the reader a chance to add their own silly persepective to the fictional set up. American children might need a bit of help with the British jokes, like the name of the chocolate bars, but it really is such a universal story that will stick with adults and kids alike.
The end has some questions and activities to do with the book, and with the exception of Jibreel’s name being spelled wrong on one these last pages, they do a good job of helping make sure kids grasp the story.
FLAGS:
There are fart jokes, and mention and illustrations of kissing on the cheek as being gross. Bullying, being mean, and two men fighting.
TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:
The book is great for 2nd and third graders to read and discuss. I don’t do a book club for that age, but I did have my 2nd grade nephew read it to start a conversation about feelings and emotions with him and it worked great. We talked about how things make us feel, understanding when we see other people acting a certain way how they might be feeling. We discussed how even if we think someone deserves something, our own integrity needs to come first. We talked about being a good friend and how being away from our mom and family would make us feel. From top to bottom this little chapter book, packs a lot of discussion options under its silly superficial layer.
This 165 page AR 3.9 book about the 42 days in 1991 that Iraq was at war with the United States is told from an 11 year old half Kurdish Christian boy’s perspective, but he mentions that he has friends that are Muslim and culturally and historically the book is relevant, important, and engaging as well. I had my 9, 11, and 13 year old read it to gain perspective of the Gulf War, the difference between politics and people, and to see diverse religions co-existing despite stereotypes, especially in the middle east.
SYNOPSIS:
Ali gets the highest score on his Atari console the day that the bombs start falling. Ali and his brothers Shirzad and Ahmed, and sister Shireen along with their parents retreat to the safest room in the upper middle class home to hopefully stay safe. With experience of surviving the Iran-Iraq war which ended just three years earlier, the kids camp out at night in the room farthest from the nearby school and spend their days playing soccer in the abandoned streets. The safe room was determined by knowing that Saddam uses his own people as human shields and places military installments in public service locations so that he can use propaganda to try and convince people that the enemy is bombing schools and hospitals intentionally to harm the innocent.
When the electricity goes out and the water cuts off, the family is forced to accept government rations. Their dad is a dentist, but as he is essentially property of the state, he is forced to work as a medic and is often absent from home. The family lives in Basra, which is in southern Iraq and near to the invaded Kuwait, thus all the troops pass through the city and the children spend their days keeping up their house, playing soccer with their friend Mustafa and trying to avoid the bullies Omar and Umar who’s father is in Saddam’s Ba’ath Party.
Ali speaks English because of his love of American TV and feels that if he can meet some US soldiers he will convince them that he should be in America not in Saddam’s Iraq. He loves Superman, video games, soccer, his family, and his country, but the people, not the leader, he loathes Saddam, even though he knows he can’t ever speak ill of him.
A trip to get rations results in Ali seeing public executions and a colleague of his math professor mother’s getting hauled away. A visit from their cousin gives them news that their father is missing. Life is not easy for the family, and yet they know they have it better than a lot of other people. After the war, once again the family will have to put back together their lives and carry on.
The book concludes with a 14 year jump and Ali translating at the trial of Saddam Hussein where the leader who has been hiding is found guilty and sentenced to be killed by hanging.
WHY I LIKE IT:
I love that Ali is so relatable, he could really be a kid anywhere which makes what he sees and hears and experiences all the more intense. The way that the book shows how the soldiers are forced to be soldiers, the citizenry at the mercy of the government, and the inability to speak freely so very real and frightening, is strong, but not traumatizing to the reading audience. Even Ali being forced to observe the killing of people in the street is handled with the target audience in mind. They are Kurdish and had to deal with that within Iraqi society, which is a nice added layer to understanding that Iraqis are not a single monolith. I love how the family had to go to the governor’s house and how nice his son was, even though, they are all Ba’ath Party members and part of the larger oppressive system. It shows that things aren’t always black and white, and to convey all this to eight and nine year olds so clearly is quite remarkable.
I also like that the book holds up over time. My kids had no idea what Atari is or was, but they could understand that it is a video game, and that it was an escape during the night for Ali to imagine he was playing a game trying to catch the falling bombs as a way to be brave and endure.
FLAGS:
Execution, death.
TOOLS FOR LEADING THE DISCUSSION:
I would consider this for a middle school book club, it is a bit short and definitely more middle grades, but it would allow kids to identify and imagine and discuss war through the fictional characters and voice their understandings of an authoritarian government structure, which would be interesting.
Islamic School Librarian 