Once again I picked up a book for the message that it explored, making a difference, and found myself smiling triumphantly when a flip of a page revealed a Muslim lady depicted in an illustration, and her culturally Islamic name gracing the page.
The book is an AR 4.2, and while there are a lot of words on each of the 32 pages, and the concept of an act multiplying might be hard for little ones to grasp, I think patient kindergarteners and first graders will grasp enough to make the story enjoyable.
Ordinary Mary is so very ordinary, but she changes the world. It all starts when she leaves berries for a neighbor. And that neighbor, Mrs. Bishop, takes the berries and makes blueberry muffins and secretly gives them to five people.
Each of those five people in turn give or do something kind to five people and over 30 billion people are impacted. But there are not that many people on the planet, so there is love left over and extra to give.
The book doesn’t follow all 30 billion obviously, but it picks and follows one person to show how the chain works before showing the mathematical growth in numbers. Mrs. Bishop gave a plate to the paperboy Billy Parker, who handed the next five people their newspaper personally instead of tossing it in their bushes. One of the people that got their newspaper smiled for 10 hours on his flight, and helped people with their bags, etc etc.
The book shows that giving something can be something tangible, or a compliment, or a phone call, or a smile. Over long distances, the kind deed comes back to Mary and the message too, comes full circle.
Along the line is Sahar, a college student who’s bag breaks and she benefits from a kind man who was just gifted oranges at the grocery store when he didn’t have enough money. She in turn compliments a woman on a boat who is distraught and unsure. An important character in the link, and an import illustration of inclusion.
There author mentions a variety of names, male and female, and the illustrator represents a fair amount of diversity of age, color, gender, religions, socio economic, ethnicity and mobility. Truly, we all have the potentially to change the world.
One could argue that countless people are misplaced each day due to war, and we overlook it because it is easier than dealing with it, so why care about a cat. And to that I challenge the skeptic, animal lover or not, to read this book and not have your heart-strings tugged.
The book is done beautifully. The pictures are warm and endearing and are the only proof that the family is Muslim, by their hijabs. The love the family has for their pet is expressed in the illustrations, and even more so by the real photographs at the end of the book following the Note from Doug and Amy. At 48 pages the book works really well for 3rd grade and up (it isn’t AR) who can marvel at the cat’s journey. I particularly think this book is a great way to show children another aspect of refugees. There are a fair amount of books that talk about the refugee experience or show refugees getting adjusted to a new home. But, this is a great way to show that refugees are not just defined by a word. They are vibrant individual people just like everyone else. By focusing on the cat and his journey, the reader sees what a refugee goes through, particularly this family, and hopefully will stop and think about it. But it doesn’t just show the family in that capacity, it shows them as a vibrant family who loves and desperately misses their cat- something more children may be able to relate to.
Islamic School Librarian 