Hamza's First Fast by Asna Chaudhry

Hamza's First Fast by Asna Chaudhry

Hamza book series is intended to teach the readers the deen through this quirky character named Hamza.

Hamza wakes up one morning and is surprised and confused why his older brother was not going to eat breakfast. He makes his way to the kitchen to get clarification from his mom about what Ramadan is. Hamza didn't want to be left out of fasting, so he decides that he will try it too, even though his mother told him he didn't have to.

He was struggling to be patient with his feeling of hunger as the hours passed. He sneaked a jar of cookies in the basement so no one would see him finally take a bite, but his guilty conscience stops him.

There are couple of things in this book that don't sit quite right with me. Hamza is caught off guard about Ramadan. It's very unrealistic to me for the Muslim child who is a part of a Muslim family not have the topic of Ramadan come up prior the first day. Only then, he finds out that everyone in his family is fasting except for him. He didn't know what the term Ramadan or fasting was. The other thing I take issue with is when Hamza thinks about the less fortunate kids, one of them was drawn in the nude (of course without details). I am not quite sure if it is the modesty aspect that we try to instill in our kids, or the fact that the poor and hungry is boldly stereotyped in this manner that doesn't quite work for me.

Finally, my random observation, oddly, the name of the author is not presented on the front cover of the book, where it normally should be. It is inside the book on the first page. Also, there is no illustrator specified, so is Asna the author and illustrator?

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May 25/2019