Ramadan Rhymes
Authors and illustrators: Elizabeth Lymer, Kim Reimann, Sandy Quigley, Aisha Davies
Ramadan Rhymes includes several songs about fasting to encourage young children to look forward to being old enough to fast, as well as rhymes about sighting the new moon, reading the Qur’an, praising Allah SWT, asking for forgiveness, and celebrating ‘Eid. It loosely follows the Ramadan journey of three children who are fasting for the first time – Noor, Hicham, and Ali.
With Bee going to nursery for the past year and also prior to that attending toddler groups, she has learnt many of the popular nursery rhymes such as The Wheels on the Bus, Incy Wincy Spider and Old McDonald had a farm. Although I have no issue with that, I often think how nice it would be if there were some rhymes with an Islamic theme. And thats where Ramadan Rhymes comes in.
Ramadan Rhymes contains 18 rhymes which are to the tunes of the popular rhymes mentioned above and many more. What I particularly liked about it is that it isn’t just a book filled with rhymes, but it is also a colouring book. So the children can learn the rhymes while colouring.
The colouring pictures are actually quite basic, but that will make it easier for the younger ones to colour…and all the characters in the pictures have no facial features.
All the rhymes relate to Ramadan with a few at the end talking about Eid. I feel the rhymes are a great way to help get children get excited about ramadan and to also help teach the basics about Ramadan and Eid.
My only criticism of the book is that the cover could be improved. The text seems blurry, especially the back. This could simply be a printing error but although they say never judge a book by its cover, and that the content is more important, appearances can matter and people can be put off purchasing books if they feel the quality isn’t up to standard. (EDIT: The author has since been in touch to advise that this will be rectified.)
In addition to being a colouring book, an extra part to the Ramadan Rhymes colouring book is that it can be used with the free video on YouTube (‘Elizabeth Lymer’ channel). I thought this was a great concept as I didn’t know the tunes to some of the nursery rhymes that were used and we could listen to them online and learn them by listening.
I can see some of these rhymes becoming stuck in my head over ramadan as they are catchy and Bee seems to be enjoying them.
Where can I buy this book
Amazon
A good idea to use popular melodies for the new Ramadan rhymes. I remember that we invented as kids always our own texts on popular tunes. And I can imagine that they will be stuck in your head 🙂
I love the concept. <3
If it is in a store near me, I'll grab it.
My son's are not exactly coloring fans. It would be nice to see the same book with coloured pages to attract little ones!
May Allah reward the author for her effort.
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I am glad to know that the Muslim authors are now coming up with such kind of books. In my time, there weren’t any picture Islamic books, cartoons or rhymes for children. These are indeed very helpful in inculcating the Islamic values in our generation.
The other day I was thinking how there are very less of Islamic Board Books and so on. But I suppose if we search enough there might be a few here and there.
Bookmarking this n keeping so as to use when my baby grows up to be delighted with this. In sha Allah.
Lovely book combining the modern nursery tones with Islamic themes so as to make it interesting to our tots which will Insha’Allah make an impact in their lives later on …
Thank you for the review.
Since I am not a mummy I honestly did not know there was so many Islamic children related things out there, thank you for sharing. I always pass on your posts to my friends who are mums because I think this can help them. (www.beautywithzainy.com and http://www.spicyfusionkitchen.com)
This is something I would buy. I’m going to Amazon right now. Hopefully there’s an ebook version.
This is great! I’ve been meaning to purchase this book and I’m glad you’ve written a lovely review about it 🙂
Masha Allah, I Iove the fact that it’s a rhyme book plus colouring book. One book – Double the fun. This will get any child excited plus the adult helper… Since it involves all the senses. Hope there’s an eVersion.
I love this. Kids are made to memorize and sing poems that have no meaning or lessons in them. This educates kids on ramadhan in a very fun way.