Book review: Eid by Maria MiGo

Eid by Maria MiGo is a lovely read all about how one Muslim family celebrates Eid.

With its gentle illustrations and short sentences, this is a great read for children 2 years and upwards.

The young boy and girl tell the story expressing their excitement for the festival of Eid. They need to find the “Eid moon” to confirm whether the festival is to begin or not. Little One was so intrigued by their moon watching and once it was confirmed she tried to understand why it was they couldn’t sleep. She even spotted that the little boy in the story has one eye open and the other closed because he’s clearly so thrilled that Eid day is coming.

The story continues showing what the lovely family do on their Eid day. This includes the children waking up to presents, the family going to the mosque to pray and receiving guests at their home.

The talented Maria MiGo wrote and illustrated this book. The illustrations used are gentle and fun. Each page is filled with bright colours and focuses more on the characters with its use of more plain and subtle background detail. An element of the book that some young ones may prefer.

The characters in the story are not stereotyped. The family are a celebration of different ethnicities and MiGo has chosen for the characters to wear a mixture of Islamic dress  and Western clothing through out the book. It is pleasing to see that children’s books are representing that a person of the Muslim faith does not need to be from a particular country or of a particular race.

It was gorgeous for Little One to see how this family celebrated Eid. There were many aspects that were similar to how we celebrate Eid and this made a lovely talking point.

This “beautiful book” (Little One’s words) is a warm, family friendly read. It highlights the fun aspect of Eid and also the spiritual side. Some children reading this book will not celebrate Eid but they are sure to find many aspects not too dissimilar to how they may celebrate a festival in their home.

This is a delightful book that embraces a religious festival in a child friendly way. This book can be purchased from Muslim Children’s Books.