Rummanah Aasi


Ramadan is is the holy month of fasting and the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. During this month Muslims abstain from food and drink (including water) from sunrise to sunset. We break our fast when the sunsets. Many people tend to focus on the physical hardships of the month, but I like to view it as a spiritual reassessment. During this month I am always reminded of how fortunate I am, exercise my willpower, strengthen my empathy skills, and most importantly making my faith stronger. This year Ramadan begins on April 2nd.
  In past years I found a Ramadan Reading Challenge online from Nadia's awesome blog Headscarves & Hardbacks, but I am not sure if there is an official reading challenge this year. I am creating one on my own with a particular focus on reading and supporting Muslim #ownvoices authors. I've listed my tbr pile for this challenge. Check it out below:


Ramadan Reading Challenge TBR:

Children Picture Books

Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers by Lina Al-Hathloul: Loujain watches her beloved Baba attach his feather wings and fly each morning, but her own dreams of flying face a big obstacle: only boys, not girls, are allowed to fly in her country. Yet despite the taunts of her classmates, she is determined that some day, she too will learn to do it--especially because Loujain loves colors, and only by flying will she be able to see the color-filled field of sunflowers her baba has told her about. Eventually, he agrees to teach her, and Loujain's impossible dream becomes reality--inspiring other girls to dare to learn to fly. Inspired by co-author Lina al-Hathloul's sister, formerly imprisoned Saudi women's rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Loujain al-Hathloul, who led the successful campaign to lift Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving. This gorgeously illustrated story is lyrical and moving.

One Wish by M.O. YukselFatima al-Fihri loved to learn. She wanted to know everything, like how birds flew, why the sky was blue, and how flowers grew. But more than anything, she wanted a school for all, where anyone could study and become whatever they wanted, like teachers, scientists, and doctors. As she grew older, Fatima carried her one wish inside her, through good times and bad. Fueled by her faith and her determination, she worked hard to make her one wish come true. For over a thousand years, Fatima’s one wish—her school—served students and scholars from around the globe, and it continues to do so today!

Amira's Picture Day by Reem Faruqi: Ramadan has come to an end, and Amira can't wait to stay home from school to celebrate Eid. There's just one hiccup: it's also school picture day. How can Amira be in two places at once?

One Sun and Countless Stars by Hena Khan: From one sun to countless stars, this gentle introduction to numbers also celebrates the many diverse traditions of the Muslim world, encouraging readers young and old to reflect upon—and count—their many blessings.

Bilaal Cooks Daal by Aisha Saeed: Six-year-old Bilal is excited to help his dad make his favorite food of all-time: daal! The slow-cooked lentil dish from South Asia requires lots of ingredients and a whole lot of waiting. Bilal wants to introduce his friends to daal. They’ve never tried it! As the day goes on, the daal continues to simmer, and more kids join Bilal and his family, waiting to try the tasty dish. And as time passes, Bilal begins to wonder: Will his friends like it as much as he does?

Middle Grade Fiction


Samira and Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds by Samira Ahmed: A genie informs twelve-year-old Amira and her younger brother Hamza that they are the chosen ones who must defeat a monstrous demon of Islamic folklore to save the Earth and a parallel dimension.

Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero by Saadia Faruqi: Yusuf is excited to start middle school in his small Texas town, but with the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks coming up, suddenly it feels like the country's same anger and grief is all focused on his Muslim community.

Omar Rising by Aisha Saeed: Omar must contend with being treated like a second-class citizen when he gets a scholarship to an elite boarding school.

Samira Surfs by Rukhsanna Guidroz: After months of rebuilding a new life in Bangladesh with her family, Samira decides to become a Bengali surfer girl of Cox's Bazar, in this novel in verse about a young Rohingya girl's journey from isolation and persecution to sisterhood, and from fear to power.

Golden Girl by Reem Faruqi: When her father is accused of a crime he didn't commit, seventh grader Aafiyah, a Pakastani American girl who has a habit of "borrowing" glittery things, decides to use her bad habit to reunite her family.

Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year by Nina Hamza: A Indian American boy endures a family move from Hawaii to frigid Minnesota and, with the help of three life-changing books he reads in school, he learns to like reading, and ultimately, himself.


YA Fiction

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir: Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.
   Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him--and Juniper--forever. When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth--and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi: To all the world, Alizeh is a disposable servant, not the long-lost heir to an ancient Jinn kingdom forced to hide in plain sight. The crown prince, Kamran, has heard the prophecies foretelling the death of his king. But he could never have imagined that the servant girl with the strange eyes, the girl he can't put out of his mind, would one day soon uproot his kingdom--and the world.

The Wrong Side of the Court by H.N. Khan: Dreaming of being the world's first Pakistani to be drafted into the NBA, fifteen-year-old Fawad Chaudhry must convince his mother to let him try out for the basketball team while dealing with the neighborhood bully.

You Truly Assumed by Laila Sabreen: Sabriya has her whole summer planned but those plans go out the window after a terrorist attack near her home. When the terrorist is assumed to be Muslim and Islamophobia grows, Sabriya turns to her online journal for comfort .Soon two more teens, Zakat and Farah, join Bri to run 'You Truly Assumed' and the three quickly form a strong friendship. When one of them is threatened, the search to find out who is behind it all begins, and their friendship is put to the test when all three must decide whether to shut down the blog and lose what they've worked for.


Adult Fiction

Good Intentions by Kasim Ali: It's the countdown to the New Year, and Nur is steeling himself to tell his parents that he's seeing someone. A young British Pakistani man, Nur has spent years omitting details about his personal life to maintain his image as the golden child. And it's come at a cost.
Once, Nur was a restless college student, struggling to fit in. At a party, he meets Yasmina, a beautiful and self-possessed aspiring journalist. They start a conversation--first awkward, then absorbing. And as their relationship develops, so too does Nur's self-destruction. He falls deeper into traps of his own making, attempting to please both Yasmina and his family until he must finally reveal the truth: Yasmina is Black, and he loves her.

Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron: Reena Manji doesn't love her career, her single status, and most of all, her family inserting themselves into every detail of her life. But when caring for her precious sourdough starters, Reena can drown it all out. At least until her father moves his newest employee across the hall - with hopes that Reena will marry him. But Nadim's not like the other Muslim bachelor-du-jours that her parents have dug up. If the Captain America body and the British accent weren't enough, the man appears to love eating her sourdough creations as much as she loves making them. She sure as hell would never marry a man who works for her father, but friendship with a neighbor is okay, right? When Reena's career takes a nosedive, she decides to follow her heart by entering a video cooking contest to win the artisan bread course of her dreams. The one problem? It's couples only. Nadim happily agrees to fake an engagement so they can enter the contest, but as cooking at home together brings them closer and her family gets wind of the situation, Reena can't help thinking her faux fiancĂ© might just be the real deal.

Mismatch by Sara Jafri: After graduating from university, Soraya Nazari decides it’s time to get the life experience she is lacking due to her strict upbringing and distracts herself with Marcus Evans, with whom she could never fall in love, until she realizes there is more to him than she originally thought.

Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed: Raised in India, Seema is the beloved daughter of a commanding, erudite, Romantic-poetry-loving doctor father who cut her off when she came out to him as a lesbian. Now living alone in San Francisco, estranged from her African American ex-husband, Seema is one week away from delivering a baby boy, Ishraaq. Ishraaq's arrival has brought to Seema's side, for the first time in 15 years, her terminally ill mother, Nafeesa, and her devoutly religious, hijab-wearing sister Tahera, an ob/gyn living with her husband and two young children in Irving, Texas. But there is to be no easy reconciliation. Instead, this fateful week, narrated by the new-born Ishraaq, ends in an emergency delivery, revealing both a family and a country in distress.
1 Response
  1. I like that you are reading Muslim #ownvoices during Ramadan and your list looks fantastic. I have All My Rage on my TBR pile so especially look forward to seeing what you think of it.


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