Prolance The Blessed Bananas: A Muslim Fable

As a western muslim mother, I could not be more dissapointed in the islamic childrens books available. I commend the author for her attempt and I like the idea behind this book (teaching generosity is an honorable thing of course) but I am again disappointed by the quality of the prose. Here are a few of my edits."He walked up to Tucana and stared at her hard"Why not say he glared at her? That would be more appropriate and concise."The words spit out of Rico's mouth"This sounds odd. Why not say, Rico practically spat the words out?"Rico could feel his blood boiling and quickly turned around to see who dares to come onto his property now"Maybe this is a typo but it should say who dared comeThose are just a few but one thing that really bothers me is the use of dua and Allah and salawaat etc. When we are looking for islamic childrens books in the west we usually speak English and want books in English. There is nothing inherently wrong with using the arabic words and it is of course important that our children learn Arabic properly in order to understand this religion but using it like this does not help or teach them much other than make them feel different than someone who uses the words God or prayer or supplication( in my opinion). American Muslim children understand the words 'prayer' and 'God'. There is a line I think where Tucana makes a quiet dua and i really think it would have sounded better had it been "she made a silent prayer". Islamic books need not use words like Allah and dua to make a book Islamic. Our children dont have islam as a culture. They have it as a religion.

Good Islamic books written in English are hard to find. They either send bizarre, age-inappropriate punitive messages, aren't well thought out, aren't well-illustrated, or simply aren't engaging.This book has everything going for it! Incredible illustration, an engaging, moral, interesting story, and it's also just so flippin cute. I loved the banana recipes in the back. My friends and I are always on the hunt for good Islamic books in English and I'm surprised none of them knew about this one. I'm definitely spreading the word. This is going to be a featured nighttime story for years to come in our family! Thank you to the author and illustrator.

Bought this book after a friend of mine recommended it. This book was even better and cuter than I thought! Great lesson, great story. Pictures in the book are beautiful. Basically a job well done MashaaAllah! My 3 year old loves it and I can't wait to do the banana recipes in the back of the book with him :)Can't wait for more stories from this author inshaaAllah.

I read this book at our Masjid's Children's Program and the kids loved the story! The author provided resources such as stick puppets and coloring pages so it made our event even better! The book has a great concept about the importance of kindness, and I would recommend it for ages 5 and up. Loved the illustrations too!

My son loves this book.