My First Ramadan

Why I like it: 

• It is fairly inexpensive and easy to find. 
• It includes muslims from around the world. 
• Cute illustrations

Things that could be improved: 

• The page with the illustration in the desert should be removed!
• Also the iftar page is “weird”, where the family is washing their hands over a bowl. 

Overall: 

This book is part of the Karen Katz collection, and unlike most her books this is NOT a board book. 

It starts off as a pretty good book where the little boy sees the new ramadan moon with his baby sister. Then the author mentions how muslims fast, and that the boy and his dad read the “Koran”, and explains that Muslims fast because it helps us to concentrate on our faith and reminds us to be thankful for what we have. Then theres a few pages about suhoor, praying fajr, islam means peace, going to school, and eating dates and having iftar. 

And then right in the middle theres a random page with an illustration of 6 middle eastern men breaking their fast with a date with the the text “That is when the prophet Muhammad first taught his followers to break their fast with a date and a sip of water”. This has been a topic of debate since 2007 on whether the author illustrated Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), the sahaba or just random people wearing thobes in the desert. We have stuck to random people in the desert. 

Then the rest of the book is good as well – it has muslims going to the mosque to pray, seeing the new moon, celebrating eid, diversity of muslims from 6 continents, praying eid prayer, and having a party and celebrating together.

This is one of those books “from wayyyy before”, and now that there are so many wonderful books, I really don’t recommend it to others. 

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