By Hena Khan
A seven-year-old Pakistani-American girl named Yasmeen watches the moon grow round and then thin across the month of Ramadan, and the night it disappears and comes back as a new crescent, it's Eid.
Yasmeen's mother takes her outside at bedtime and points at a thin sliver of moon. That sliver means Ramadan has started. From then on Yasmeen looks for the moon every night, and the whole month unfolds underneath it. Her family wakes in the dark to eat before dawn. She goes to school. Her parents fast all day, and one day Yasmeen tries fasting too. Her grandmother tells stories. One night the family stays up late to pray, and another night the mosque is packed with people she knows. The moon fills out, then slims down, then one night it's gone completely. That night is Chaand Raat, the night of the moon, when everyone stays up painting henna on their hands and getting ready. In the morning it's Eid, with new clothes and presents and more food than anyone can eat.
It works for whoever you're reading it to. A Muslim child gets to be the one at the center of their own holiday instead of the classmate who explains it, and a child who's never heard of Ramadan can still follow every page, because Yasmeen is seven and hungry and mostly just wants to find the moon and stay up late. You don't need to know anything going in. Julie Paschkis paints in deep blues and golds with a patterned border around every page, so the whole book feels like a celebration. The words you might not know are defined in a glossary at the back, out of the way of the story.