By Rabiah York Lumbard
Sophia's grandma says fasting makes you sparkle, so Sophia is set on fasting all day for Ramadan — until she can't, and has to find her own way to take part.
Sophia's grandma tells her that fasting makes a person sparkle, and Sophia loves anything sparkly, so she's set on fasting for Ramadan like the grown-ups. She's up before dawn with the whole family. She makes it through the morning. But by afternoon she's hungry, she eats, and there's the rest of the day stretching out with everyone else still fasting and Sophia already done. Instead of leaving her there, the book has her work out that fasting isn't the only way in. With her grandma, she helps make the iftar, the meal that breaks the fast at sunset. She sets the table, she gives, she looks after people — and the sparkly feeling shows up after all, just not where she went looking for it.
Most Ramadan books for this age end with the child proudly finishing their first fast. This one lets Sophia not manage it, fairly early, and then spends the rest of its pages on what she does instead, which is the more useful story for any young child who has set out to do something hard and come up short. Rabiah York Lumbard became Muslim at eighteen, and the book feels written by someone more interested in why the month matters than in cataloging what people do during it. What it lands on is that Ramadan is really about who you're taking care of, and it gets there through a small girl and a kitchen instead of a lesson. The grandmother runs all the way through, too, so it's a warm pick for a family where a grandparent is the one carrying the tradition.