Zak and His Good Intentions by J. Samia Mair

📚 BOOK REVIEW 📚

Title: Zak and His Good Intentions

Author: J. Samia Mair

Illustrator: Omar Burgess

Publisher: The Islamic Foundation @kubepublishing

Age: 6-10

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Islamic Content: The importance of a good intention

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Concerns: None

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Summary:

Zak wants to collect as many good deeds as his little sister, Hana. Each task he takes on, flops before he gets the chance to complete them. everything is going wrong; the cookies fall to the floor, he falls off a tree, he gets his father soaked etc. Zak's disappointment grows since he was unable to get any reward for his uncompleted tasks. Or does he?

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Review:

As parents we consistently highlight to our kids the importance of doing good deeds. Kindness, generosity, sharing and helping are all a means of us pleasing Allah and getting rewarded for them. However, kids will experience flops and frustrations when their kindness or deed unintentionally doesn't follow through. This is such an important concept for them to understand; failure doesn't equal missed rewards from Allah. I think the this advance picture book is wonderfully done to really display the mishap of events. The illustrations are fun in the way the facial expressions are depicted. The competitive approach between the siblings as well as the result comparison is just so relatable for the kids. Although Zak internalizes a bit of blame on his sister for completing all her good deeds, the story doesn't actually dwell and center around it. I would have liked to see the word 'intention' defined within the story seeing that it revolves entirely around it. None the less, it can be discussed with your child as you read along. The end of the book includes the hadith reference for good intentions as well as a page of discussions points to have with your child. This is a unique topic that is well done and needs to be part of all Muslim bookshelves.

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