Raihanna is back and learning about Jennah with her two best friends, Safiya and her cousin Maryam. In this beautiful 8×10 book, the character who last fasted her first Ramadan fast is now having a sleep over and learning just how wondrous and worth the wait heaven will be.
The story starts with the three girls parallel playing as a veterinarian, firefighter and world class chef. When hunger strikes and the cookie jar only has one cookie, Raihanna has to decide to eat it or divide it into thirds.
With mom looking on as Raihanna decides to share, a teachable moment about jennah presents itself. The mom, in her consistent purple uniform, tells Raihanna she will be rewarded in jennah for her good deed. Which leads Raihanna to ask why she can’t be rewarded now. The explanation is a bit text heavy, but using ice cream to explain a reward in this world, and having whatever you want in the next, sets up the format and story line for the rest of the book.
The girls start off asking for pretty simple things like kittens and bikes. But mom encourages them to think of something beyond their imagination. The girls come up with castles and world’s made of candy, and flying like birds, and golden kitchens.
The mom responds virtually the same after each girl expresses what she would want. She says, “…beyond your wildest dreams,” then, “…beyond your imagination,” then “beyond belief,” then “beyond description,” then back to, “…beyond your imagination.” It gets a bit repetitive, but not necessarily in a good way because it doesn’t function as a refrain that the little ones will pick up on. It just gets annoying I think for the reader if the book is requested too often. I wish she would have maybe picked one, giving the book a comforting pattern, and something that the young ones could remember and benefit more from. The book is for preschool to early elementary kids, but because of the amount of text on the page, it will be read to that age group, not read independently.
As with the first book, I love the warm colorful cartoonish illustrations, they both attract and engage children as young as two or three. The hard back binding and glossy pages also make it sturdy and a wonderful gift. This is a book for Muslim children that I think little girls especially will enjoy. I sincerely hope there will be more books in the Raihanna series.
Islamic School Librarian 