Before anything else, answer one question, because it decides everything: is this for a Muslim family, or for a child who is learning what Ramadan is? Those are two different presents and half the books here only do one of them. A book that explains a family's own religion to them can land as a small insult, however kindly you meant it — and the books written to explain are not the books written from inside. So this shelf sorts by who each one is really for, says which authors are Muslim and which aren't, and tells you plainly where a book is an outsider's introduction. Pick one and stop. One warning about timing while you're here: Ramadan moves about eleven days earlier every year, so the date is never where it was last time.
Seven books. Sort them by who they're for and the shelf falls into three piles. WRITTEN FROM INSIDE, FOR ANY FAMILY: 'Night of the Moon' is Hena Khan — a Pakistani-American Muslim mother — writing a seven-year-old Muslim girl through a whole month, and it's built so a child who's never heard of Ramadan can follow it anyway. That's the rare book that can't land badly in either direction. 'The Gift of Ramadan' is Rabiah York Lumbard, an American Muslim who came to Islam at eighteen, and it's the one where the child tries to fast and fails, which is the more useful story. 'Lailah's Lunchbox' is the different book on this shelf and worth understanding: Reem Faruqi, a Muslim writer who moved from Abu Dhabi to Georgia at thirteen, wrote her own childhood down. It isn't about explaining Ramadan. It's about being the only child in an American school who's fasting, and being too shy to say so. For a Muslim child that can be the first time they've met themselves in a book. 'Once Upon an Eid' is fifteen Muslim writers, edited by S. K. Ali and Aisha Saeed, both Muslim — and it's a fat anthology for eight to twelve, not a picture book. WRITTEN FROM OUTSIDE, FOR A CHILD LEARNING: this is the pile to be careful with. Karen Katz is not Muslim by any bio I could find, and 'My First Ramadan' is one of her 'My First Holiday' books alongside Kwanzaa and Passover — one author walking children through other people's holidays. Sylvia Whitman is not Muslim either; she has a master's in Arab studies and Arab-American children, and 'Under the Ramadan Moon' is a warm outsider's introduction that Kirkus found thin on actual information. Both are decent books for a child meeting Ramadan for the first time. Both are odd presents for a Muslim family, who don't need their own month introduced to them. THE COMPLICATED ONE: 'It's Ramadan, Curious George'. Hena Khan wrote it, so the details are right, and for plenty of Muslim families it was a joy — Ramadan finally on the same shelf as every other holiday George has celebrated, and a three-year-old will sit for it because the monkey is in it. But George is the one having the experience and Kareem, the Muslim child, is the friend. It's the only book here where that's true. The word Muslim never appears and the purpose of the month goes unexplained. Some families love it, some find a secular monkey a strange vehicle for their religion, and both reactions are reasonable. Last, the thing nobody tells gift-buyers: Ramadan moves. It runs on the lunar calendar and slides roughly eleven days earlier each year, and the start waits on someone actually sighting the new crescent, so it isn't pinned down until close to the time. The next one begins in early February 2027. A Ramadan book wants to arrive before the month starts, not halfway through. Eid al-Fitr is the celebration at the end, which is a different parcel and a different date — and 'Once Upon an Eid' is the only book here that belongs to it.