I absolutely love this book, and I love its name. Najma means “Star” in Arabic, and this book is about the stars in the sky.

The pictures are gorgeous, and they all flow with the theme of stars, and each page shows the night sky.⠀ ⠀ I love how this is a girl-led book with Najma being the main character, and her mom, the astronomer, teaching her about the universe. The bond between the mother and her child really shines through in the book and gives the reader a strong feeling of their love.⠀ ⠀ The book includes a lot of definitions of different stars, and clusters of stars, and my kids and I loved learning about them. I like how the book was organized, with the star names in bold and the definitions simple enough for the kids to understand. The definitions were explained in cute “child” terms and using fun explanations, but they were a little long. ⠀ Each star is included with a picture of it to further teach the reader about it.

Najma comments on the stars and inserts her own quirky personality into the explanations, which was the best part for the kids.⠀ ⠀ I love how Najma asks her mom the purpose of stars, and her mother answers that they are made by Allah for different purposes such as the sun being our signal to start our day and the stars being guides for sailors and travelers (this one is mentioned in the Quran!!) It helps teach children astronomy while also including the aspect that Allah created everything for us to remember him. ⠀ ⠀ This story is perfect for use as a teaching resource, especially for young children, but you might want to split it up into a few different reading sessions, because it has a lot of information about stars, and so splitting it up helps children retain the information.⠀ ⠀ This book would be wonderful to use as inspiration to make some star crafts and paint the different stars. ⠀

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