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anna_csimpson's review against another edition
3.0
Another nice little book I read for my degree. I loved the message, the educational aspect and the diversity! Definitely a book worth reading to every child, and though I only gave it three stars because it was predictable, I am, of course, an adult.
ripthepage's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
5.0
I loved reading this with my students. The themes in this book allowed us to have deep conversations about tolerance & empathy. It was also adorable & funny. I learned so much!
helenamourlas's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
3.0
this book was cute, and includes diversity and acceptance
not the best because it’s a children’s novel
not the best because it’s a children’s novel
deckle_edged_dre's review against another edition
4.0
Such a fun middle grade read!! I was laughing out loud while reading this and also learning so much.
Recommended for all 7-12 year olds!!
Recommended for all 7-12 year olds!!
fuse8's review against another edition
4.0
Troublesome boys. Lifeblood of early chapter books. Where would we be without them, after all? It seems to me that at some point in history it because a well-established fact that the best way to get kids reading on their own was to hand them a series of incurably naughty heroes and heroines. Here in America you have your Iggy books by Annie Barrows, your Julian stories by Ann Cameron, your Horrible Harry titles by Suzy Kline, your Stink books by McDonald, and on and on the list goes. In England they’ve their own crop, with titles like Horrid Henry. Of course, overwhelmingly, these boys tend to be white (Julian being the rare exception). Their books might discuss world views, but never religion. They’d mention mummies and detention, but never prejudice and racism. So when you pick up a copy of Zanib Mian’s Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet it looks like those other books. It feels like those other books. It has just as many laughs and action and mistakes. It just also happens to raise the bar by having juuuuust a little more going on under the surface. Omar’s the Muslim hero we’ve been waiting for. The start of something big.
Shenanigans. Omar’s sort of prone to them. If he’s not accidentally spitting on his brother when trying to rid himself of a nightmare then he’s trying to get away with wearing barbecue stained clothes to school on the first day or attracting the attention of Daniel, the mean kid at school. He’s just moved with his family to a new house and things are complicated. I mean, there are good things, sure. He likes Charlie, a kid at school with a toothy grin, and he loves his mom’s cooking (particularly her biryani), and even his little brother. But then there’s that mean old lady next door that keeps complaining on her phone about “the Muslims” or Daniel, talking about how the Muslims will all get kicked out of the country. Fortunately Omar has his family, his friends, and best of all his sense of humor to turn any situation on its head.
Children’s books written for the mainstream public don’t tend to talk much about religion. Think of a bunch of children’s classics off the top of your head, if you please. Obviously fantasies like [b: Wizard of Oz|236093|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)|L. Frank Baum|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1398003737l/236093._SY75_.jpg|1993810] or [b: Alice in Wonderland|24213|Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass|Lewis Carroll|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327872220l/24213._SY75_.jpg|2375385] wouldn’t have, but let’s look at realistic fiction. Harriet the Spy. Holes. One Crazy Summer. [b: A Single Shard|785453|A Single Shard|Linda Sue Park|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348868705l/785453._SX50_.jpg|771451]. Any religion or spirituality in any of those? Not so much. And there’s nothing wrong with including or not including religion. The only reason I bring it up is to explain why it can feel so surprising when you encounter religion in Accidental Trouble Magnet. You do it right away, honestly. At the beginning of the book you meet Omar, his little brother Esa, and his older sister Maryam all within the span of three pages. Each kid gets one page all to themselves and there are around four to five facts about each kid per page. Maryam’s says stuff like she loves peanut butter cups and is thirteen, but also contains the statement that she, “Knows 28 surahs of the Qur’an by heart.” As for Omar himself, he’s no stranger to big, grandiose, spiritual questions. And while he does have a tendency to treat prayer the same way one might treat magic wishes from a genie, his heart’s in the right place.
I called this title an “early chapter book” at the beginning of this review, but that’s not entirely accurate. Accidental Trouble Magnet actually occupies a much stranger, much more interesting niche. Indeed, this might be the book that you hand a kid after they’ve graduated past some of those other books I mentioned. That doesn’t make it any less remarkable when Mian chooses to include moments of pure racism on her pages. At one point in the book, Omar has had an encounter with Daniel, the bully. Standing behind Omar in line, Daniel hisses, “You’re Muslim. I saw your mother the other day, looking like a witch, in black. You better go back to your country before we kick you all out.” Right there. Front and center. That’s racist kid territory that is. After reading it, I was very curious to see how Mian would choose to handle this situation. Let the bully get away with being mean? I see that way too often in books and, quite frankly, that solution wouldn’t fly with this kind of book. Have the bully get caught in the act of a minor hate crime? Probable but unsatisfying. Give the bully a complete change of heart? Please. Respect the reader’s intelligence. I hadn’t counted on the hybrid solution of change of heart + context. It eventually comes to light that Daniel picked up this language from his cousin. Well… that’s what he says. I think a lot of parents reading this book to their kids might cultivate alternative theories as well.
And it’s fun! I’m sorry. I’m one of those adults that too often forgets to mention the fact that a book is fun before launching into lofty theories about contemporary attitudes towards racism and allyship in modern children’s literature. Those are important but fun is important too. Fun is what gets kids past that first page. You know what the first page of this book is? It’s a picture of Omar that reads “ME” in big bold letters and explains “My name is Omar – this is my face.” It also explains that “I have a HUGE imagination,” “I hate carrots,” and “I once raced against my dad’s car on my bike – and won!” And to make clear how perfect that opening is, it would behoove me to give a little credit to illustrator Nasaya Mafaridik who somehow manages to match Mian’s tone for this book, pitch for pitch, word for word. Together, Mian and Mafaridik work in tandem to keep the tone and feel of the book light. When Mian opens the first chapter with the sentence, “There was a big puddle of spit on my little brother’s forehead,” Mafaridik’s there to draw that spit. And Omar pointing at the spit. Because if there’s one thing I know about children’s books it is this: You can never go wrong beginning a book by accidentally spitting on the head of a little sibling. That’s just science.
So give me all those troublesome boy books. Give me more of them even! Give me differently abled troublesome boys. Give me (please please give me) a troublesome transgender boy who gets into all kinds of mischief. Give me Native American boys. Give me Asian American boys. Give me boys with stutters and bald boys and army brats and all the different kinds of troublesome boys that are out there. To say nothing of equally troublesome girls! Omar is doing his part, but he can’t do it alone. If we want to show our child readers the wide, wonderful, wild world out there in all its myriad forms, we need as many different perspectives as we can find. And until that happens, let’s hand Omar to as many kinds as we can name. Because as far as I’m concerned, funny books that also prove to be smart and socially conscious (not to mention anti-racist) might help us get out of the mess this world is in.
For ages 6-9.
Shenanigans. Omar’s sort of prone to them. If he’s not accidentally spitting on his brother when trying to rid himself of a nightmare then he’s trying to get away with wearing barbecue stained clothes to school on the first day or attracting the attention of Daniel, the mean kid at school. He’s just moved with his family to a new house and things are complicated. I mean, there are good things, sure. He likes Charlie, a kid at school with a toothy grin, and he loves his mom’s cooking (particularly her biryani), and even his little brother. But then there’s that mean old lady next door that keeps complaining on her phone about “the Muslims” or Daniel, talking about how the Muslims will all get kicked out of the country. Fortunately Omar has his family, his friends, and best of all his sense of humor to turn any situation on its head.
Children’s books written for the mainstream public don’t tend to talk much about religion. Think of a bunch of children’s classics off the top of your head, if you please. Obviously fantasies like [b: Wizard of Oz|236093|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)|L. Frank Baum|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1398003737l/236093._SY75_.jpg|1993810] or [b: Alice in Wonderland|24213|Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass|Lewis Carroll|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327872220l/24213._SY75_.jpg|2375385] wouldn’t have, but let’s look at realistic fiction. Harriet the Spy. Holes. One Crazy Summer. [b: A Single Shard|785453|A Single Shard|Linda Sue Park|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348868705l/785453._SX50_.jpg|771451]. Any religion or spirituality in any of those? Not so much. And there’s nothing wrong with including or not including religion. The only reason I bring it up is to explain why it can feel so surprising when you encounter religion in Accidental Trouble Magnet. You do it right away, honestly. At the beginning of the book you meet Omar, his little brother Esa, and his older sister Maryam all within the span of three pages. Each kid gets one page all to themselves and there are around four to five facts about each kid per page. Maryam’s says stuff like she loves peanut butter cups and is thirteen, but also contains the statement that she, “Knows 28 surahs of the Qur’an by heart.” As for Omar himself, he’s no stranger to big, grandiose, spiritual questions. And while he does have a tendency to treat prayer the same way one might treat magic wishes from a genie, his heart’s in the right place.
I called this title an “early chapter book” at the beginning of this review, but that’s not entirely accurate. Accidental Trouble Magnet actually occupies a much stranger, much more interesting niche. Indeed, this might be the book that you hand a kid after they’ve graduated past some of those other books I mentioned. That doesn’t make it any less remarkable when Mian chooses to include moments of pure racism on her pages. At one point in the book, Omar has had an encounter with Daniel, the bully. Standing behind Omar in line, Daniel hisses, “You’re Muslim. I saw your mother the other day, looking like a witch, in black. You better go back to your country before we kick you all out.” Right there. Front and center. That’s racist kid territory that is. After reading it, I was very curious to see how Mian would choose to handle this situation. Let the bully get away with being mean? I see that way too often in books and, quite frankly, that solution wouldn’t fly with this kind of book. Have the bully get caught in the act of a minor hate crime? Probable but unsatisfying. Give the bully a complete change of heart? Please. Respect the reader’s intelligence. I hadn’t counted on the hybrid solution of change of heart + context. It eventually comes to light that Daniel picked up this language from his cousin. Well… that’s what he says. I think a lot of parents reading this book to their kids might cultivate alternative theories as well.
And it’s fun! I’m sorry. I’m one of those adults that too often forgets to mention the fact that a book is fun before launching into lofty theories about contemporary attitudes towards racism and allyship in modern children’s literature. Those are important but fun is important too. Fun is what gets kids past that first page. You know what the first page of this book is? It’s a picture of Omar that reads “ME” in big bold letters and explains “My name is Omar – this is my face.” It also explains that “I have a HUGE imagination,” “I hate carrots,” and “I once raced against my dad’s car on my bike – and won!” And to make clear how perfect that opening is, it would behoove me to give a little credit to illustrator Nasaya Mafaridik who somehow manages to match Mian’s tone for this book, pitch for pitch, word for word. Together, Mian and Mafaridik work in tandem to keep the tone and feel of the book light. When Mian opens the first chapter with the sentence, “There was a big puddle of spit on my little brother’s forehead,” Mafaridik’s there to draw that spit. And Omar pointing at the spit. Because if there’s one thing I know about children’s books it is this: You can never go wrong beginning a book by accidentally spitting on the head of a little sibling. That’s just science.
So give me all those troublesome boy books. Give me more of them even! Give me differently abled troublesome boys. Give me (please please give me) a troublesome transgender boy who gets into all kinds of mischief. Give me Native American boys. Give me Asian American boys. Give me boys with stutters and bald boys and army brats and all the different kinds of troublesome boys that are out there. To say nothing of equally troublesome girls! Omar is doing his part, but he can’t do it alone. If we want to show our child readers the wide, wonderful, wild world out there in all its myriad forms, we need as many different perspectives as we can find. And until that happens, let’s hand Omar to as many kinds as we can name. Because as far as I’m concerned, funny books that also prove to be smart and socially conscious (not to mention anti-racist) might help us get out of the mess this world is in.
For ages 6-9.
ah_1's review against another edition
4.0
Secondary: orange (humour)
Very similar to Diary of a Wimpy Kid (with illustrations etc.) but centered around a Muslim family. Charming characters. Funny.
Plot involves some islamophobia but tackles it in a child-friendly way. Some educational bits about Islam, informative for non-muslim readers.
Very similar to Diary of a Wimpy Kid (with illustrations etc.) but centered around a Muslim family. Charming characters. Funny.
Plot involves some islamophobia but tackles it in a child-friendly way. Some educational bits about Islam, informative for non-muslim readers.
libzesawyer's review against another edition
3.0
While the writing is a bit weak, fans of Diary of a Wimpy kid will love this book about a Muslim boy trying to navigate a new school and dealing with the class bully who scares him in many ways but especially when he claims all the Muslims will be sent out of England. A very timely book and solid characters just needs better writing.
awaywithforestfae's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Another one I read for class, and I really loved it!! Planet Omar is packed full of humour which adults and children alike can enjoy. There's also lots of very relatable things to growing up, and growing up British which made it even more amusing!
I liked how a lot of the parts in Omar's life that related to Islam were explained, so it was accessible to readers that don't know much about Islam. It would also have made it very relatable to Muslim children reading the book, and the representation was wonderful to see.
The focus on character made for some insightful writing, alongside the humour, going deeper into why certain characters acted the way they did. The ending, in relation to this, was really very heartwarming!
The diary style writing reminded me of books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Lottie Brooks, so I think the children in my class will really enjoy this book.
All in all, I'd recommend this to someone who wants a funny and heartwarming middle grade read.
I liked how a lot of the parts in Omar's life that related to Islam were explained, so it was accessible to readers that don't know much about Islam. It would also have made it very relatable to Muslim children reading the book, and the representation was wonderful to see.
The focus on character made for some insightful writing, alongside the humour, going deeper into why certain characters acted the way they did. The ending, in relation to this, was really very heartwarming!
The diary style writing reminded me of books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Lottie Brooks, so I think the children in my class will really enjoy this book.
All in all, I'd recommend this to someone who wants a funny and heartwarming middle grade read.
abbielester's review against another edition
4.0
This is a cute story with a great message. Definitely more elementary than middle grade.