By Hena Khan
A rhyming colors book told by a young Muslim girl, where each color opens a small window into her faith and home — red prayer rug, blue hijab, golden mosque dome.
A young Muslim girl walks you through the colors of her days, and each one belongs to something in her faith or her home. Red is the prayer rug her father kneels on. Blue is her mother's hijab. Gold is the dome of the mosque, orange the henna on her hands at Eid, white the kufi cap, green the cover of the Quran, silver the lanterns hung up for Ramadan. Underneath it all is a plain colors book any four-year-old can follow. But every color also arrives with a small, specific piece of how this one family lives. The verse is soft, Mehrdokht Amini's art is jewel-bright, and it reads start to finish in one sitting.
This shows one faith from the inside, which does something a survey of many religions can't. Rather than describing Islam from the outside, it lets a Muslim child point at the ordinary, lovely things in her life and name their colors, so your child meets a religion the way a young member of it would — as home, not as a topic to get through. It's also a genuine colors book: a four-year-old can enjoy it purely as red, blue, and gold, with none of the faith content needing to land. That keeps the floor low if you're reading to a spread of ages at once. If you're building a shelf that shows faith from within, it pairs naturally with Festival of Colors, which does the same for a Hindu celebration.