Looking for a book that views Ramadan through the eyes of a Muslim child? I can’t wait to tell you about Samira’s Eid!
*I received a complimentary copy of this title for review purposes.
Post contains affiliate links; see disclosure for details.)
Multicultural Children’s Book Day is in its 5th year and was founded by Valarie Budayr from Jump Into A Book and Mia Wenjen from PragmaticMom. Their mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in home and school bookshelves while also working to get more of these types of books into the hands of young readers, parents and educators.
I received Samira’s Eid by Nasreen Aktar and Enebor Attard from Language Lizard for my Multicultural Children’s Book Day book this year.
Multicultural Children’s Book Day:
Samira’s Eid
I’m a believer in using children’s books to help my kids explore other cultures and perspectives and that’s why I’m happy to review Samira’s Eid for MCBD 2018. This colorful book follows a Muslim girl named Samira and her family as they end their Ramadan fast and enter Eid ul-Fitr.
While I’m sure Muslim children take great delight in experiencing Ramadan through Samira’s eyes, as a Christian a parent, I especially appreciate the way Samira’s Eid helps non-Muslim kids understand the practices that occur during Ramadan.
In the story, readers experience fasting — and the difficulties associated with it —, watching for the new moon, new clothes for the celebration, prayer at the mosque, gifts, and feasting. It’s a lovely way to see Ramadan through the eyes of a child.
Since we’re a Christian family and aren’t too familiar with Ramadan or Eid ul-Fitr, we were especially grateful to find the free multicultural lesson resources on the Language Lizard site. These resources are a great way to learn more about holidays, cultures, and languages with your kids.
In particular, I used the plans for Comparing and Contrasting Holidays Lesson and Appreciating Diverse Cultures and Religions. These were both incredibly helpful in helping us understand basic information about Ramadan and how it’s celebrated, but also in helping us find similarities and differences in how we celebrate holidays as followers of Christ.
Aside from the story itself, I was surprised to find that our copy of Samira’s Eid is dual language. It was interesting to see the differences between our familiar English words and the Albanian text that shared each page. And, after looking on the Language Lizard site, I learned that it comes in several bi-lingual options:
- Albanian/English
- Arabic/English
- Bengali/English
- French/English
- Gujarati/English
- Kurdish/English
- Turkish/English
- Urdu/English
What’s more is that Language Lizard is a fantastic resource for dual language books. If you’re looking for ways to build a home library with language diversity, you’ll love what you find there!
Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2018
MCBD 2018 is honored to have some amazing sponsors on board.
Medallion Sponsors
- HONORARY: Children’s Book Council, Junior Library Guild
- PLATINUM: Scholastic Book Clubs
- GOLD: Audrey Press, Candlewick Press, Loving Lion Books, Second Story Press, Star Bright Books, Worldwide Buddies
- SILVER: Capstone Publishing, Author Charlotte Riggle, Child’s Play USA, KidLit TV, Pack-n-Go Girls, Plum Street Press
- BRONZE: Barefoot Books, Carole P. Roman, Charlesbridge Publishing, Dr. Crystal Bowe, Gokul! World, Green Kids Club, Gwen Jackson, Jacqueline Woodson, Juan J. Guerra, Language Lizard, Lee & Low Books, RhymeTime Storybooks, Sanya Whittaker Gragg, TimTimTom Books, WaterBrook & Multnomah, Wisdom Tales Press
Author Sponsor include
Author/Illustrator Aram Kim • Author/Illustrator Juana Medina • Author Janet Balletta • Author Susan Bernardo • Author Carmen Bernier-Grand • Author Tasheba Berry-McLaren and Space2Launch • Bollywood Groove Books • Author Anne Broyles • Author Kathleen Burkinshaw • Author Eugenia Chu • Author Lesa Cline-Ransome • Author Medeia Cohan and Shade 7 Publishing • Desi Babies • Author Dani Dixon and Tumble Creek Press • Author Judy Dodge Cummings • Author D.G. Driver • Author Nicole Fenner and Sister Girl Publishing • Debbi Michiko Florence • Author Josh Funk • Author Maria Gianferrari • Author Daphnie Glenn • Globe Smart Kids • Author Kimberly Gordon Biddle • Author Quentin Holmes • Author Esther Iverem • Jennifer Joseph: Alphabet Oddities • Author Kizzie Jones • Author Faith L Justice • Author P.J. LaRue and MysticPrincesses.com • Author Karen Leggett Abouraya • Author Sylvia Liu • Author Sherri Maret • Author Melissa Martin Ph.D. • Author Lesli Mitchell • Pinky Mukhi and We Are One • Author Miranda Paul • Author Carlotta Penn • Real Dads Read • Greg Ransom • Author Sandra L. Richards, RealMVPKids • Author Andrea Scott • Alva Sachs and Three Wishes Publishing • Shelly Bean the Sports Queen • Author Sarah Stevenson • Author Gayle H. Swift • Author Elsa Takaoka • Author Christine Taylor-Butler • Nicholette Thomas and MFL Publishing • Author Andrea Y. Wang • Author Jane Whittingham • Author Natasha Yim
We’d like to also give a shout-out to MCBD’s impressive CoHost Team. They not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but also work tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View the CoHosts HERE.
Learn more about MCBD
To learn more about Multicultural Children’s Book Day, you can start by checking out the MCBD website. It contains tons of information on multicultural books for teachers and free kindness classroom kits for homeschoolers, organizations, librarians, and other educators. There are also tons of for teachers and parents.
Lastly, be sure to follow along with all Multicultural Children’s Book Day fun by searching #ReadYourWorld on your favorite social media platform.