This book is part of a new Muslim Scientist Series featuring 24 glossy colorful 8×8 pages highlighting a great Muslim from the Golden Age of Islam. Meant for Muslim children ages 4-7, the book sets out to teach and inspire little Muslims, and does a pretty decent job of presenting it in a memorable easy to understand way. Adults might have to explain and help out a bit, but the book accounts for that too.
The book starts off with some “Notes to Parents and Teachers” about supplemental activities and conversation starters to make the book relevant, and show how beneficial their contributions to science were and still are today.
The book is a simplified biography of Ibn Yunus, and I would imagine the other books: Ibn Majid, Ibn Battuta, Ibn Al-Batar, follow the same pattern. It tells about where he was born and when, and what he is famous for, before telling a bit about his family, an ayat from the Quran that inspired him is then given in English and Arabic and translated, before it shows how he worked toward his goal, and the accomplishments he made in his lifetime that still are used today.
The fun illustrations make Ibn Yunus’s field of study easier to understand and will keep the littler listeners interested. Adults will hopefully also learn something in the reading, and feel the same pride and inspiration of Muslim’s contributions to science.
It is critical to teach our children about the accomplishments and discoveries of Muslims, and this non fiction series is a great introduction to Muslim scientists, scholars, and adventurers, that they might not otherwise learn about.
Islamic School Librarian 