Picture Book - Time to Pray by Maha Addasi

Illustrated by Ned Gannon

2010, Boyds Mill Press, Honesdale, PA

HC $17/95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  .10 - 122 ratings

My rating:  4.5

1^st line/s:  "In the darkness, green lights winked at me from the minaret of the nearby mosque.  I heard the voice of the muezzin calling, 'Come to pray, come to pray.'  It was my first night at Grandma's house."

My comments:  Young Yasmin goes to visit her grandmother in a Middle eastern country (doesn't say which one). It looks like she goes all by herself!   Impressive....  She hears the call to prayer five times a day, and her grandmother teaches her all about the different prayers and rituals surrounding them, makes her a "proper" outfit for praying, and takes her to the mosque.  Each double-page spread includes a page of English text and the Arabic translation.  When she returns home (to America, I'm guessing - or maybe Canada), she shares her new knowledge with her parents and feels continually connected to her grandmother when she looks at the miniature mosque that Teta sent home with her.  There's an explanation of the five praryer times at the end of the book.  The illustrations are gorgeous - no white at all.  One of our  visiting Muslim families, when returning the book, told me they've taken this book out several times for their 4 and 6-year-old kids and really enjoy it.

Goodreads:  Yasmin is visiting her grandmother, who lives in a country somewhere in the Middle East. On her first night, she's wakened by the muezzin at the nearby mosque calling the faithful to prayer, and Yasmin watches from her bed as her grandmother prepares to pray. A visit with Grandmother is always special, but this time it is even more so. Her grandmother makes Yasmin prayer clothes, buys her a prayer rug, and teaches her the five prayers that Muslims perform over the course of a day. When it's time for Yasmin to board a plane and return home, her grandmother gives her a present that her granddaughter opens when she arrives: a prayer clock in the shape of a mosque, with an alarm that sounds like a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Maha Addasi's warm and endearing story is richly illustrated by Ned Gannon. Features a text in English and Arabic, and includes an author's note and glossary.