Day: April 27, 2021

In My Mosque by M. O. Yuksel

| Tasha

In My Mosque by M. O. Yuksel, illustrated by Hatem Aly (9780062978707)

Join children as they welcome you to their mosque. They show you how they worship, how their communities act, and demonstrate that everyone is welcome to enter and attend. A diverse range of children show how they take off their shoes when they enter, how the elders greet the children, how they help to set up the prayer rugs. In some communities the muezzin’s call brings them to prayer while in others the imam shares stories of living as one. Throughout, the focus is on a shared community, of loving and caring for one another, of helping the larger community. Clear connections are also drawn to other faiths and how similar Muslim beliefs are.

Yuksel writes with a joyous tone, welcoming children to explore and ask questions about the Muslim faith. The book combines straight forward explanations with imagery that really show how the children feel about their mosques. The imagery is lovely: “aunties’ hijabs sway like a sea of flowers as we move through our prayers” and “we line our shows in rows, like colorful beads.” All of the metaphors are approachable, offering a deeper understanding.

Aly’s illustrations are bright and friendly. They show a diverse array of children attending the mosques, including children of a wide age range. The backgrounds of the images are also filled with children and their families. Aly does a great job of including a wide array of mosques from around the world, transitioning between them in a way that makes it clear they are different spaces and countries.

A welcoming and warm look at mosques and the Muslim faith. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by HarperCollins.

Zonia’s Rain Forest by Juana Martinez-Neal

| Tasha

Zonia’s Rain Forest by Juana Martinez-Neal (9781536208450)

Zonia lives in the rain forest. Every morning, the rain forest calls to her and she heads inside. She follows a blue butterfly, visiting her friends the sloths. She chats with the birds in the trees. She sees her best friend, a coati, and her fastest friend, the jaguar. She stops by the water and greets all of the new babies. She has a baby brother of her own. She plays in the rain forest, hanging upside down like the snakes and enjoying a game of hide and seek. She has places to be quiet and places to run. But when she discovers something she has never seen before, she rushes home to tell her mother of the devastation she saw. Now it is time for her, and all of us, to do something to help the rain forest.

Zonia is Asháninka, the largest Indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon. The face paint that she wears on the final page speaks to her determination and strength. Like many Asháninka, Zonia must face the destruction of the rain forest that she and her entire people rely on to survive. By introducing us to the various animals in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest, Martinez-Neal shows all that we as a world have to lose by not protecting them and their habitat. The book ends with information on the animals shown in the story, information on the Asháninka people, and more facts about the Amazon itself.

The art in this picture book is exquisite. Caldecott Honor winner Martinez-Neal uses hand-made paper from the women paper artisans of Chazuta, Peru to paint the illustrations. These papers form the background of all of the images, providing an organic, speckled and natural feel to the scenes. The bright colors of the Amazon rain forest pop against this subtly textured warmth.

An important picture book about saving the Amazon rain forest, it is also beautifully written and illustrated. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy provided by Candlewick Press.