Summary
In My Mosque, is a fictional book about a child’s experience in a mosque. The story highlights family, worship, connectedness and the beauty of coming together. The author does a wonderful job pairing child experiences with culturally rich language and explanation of services that go beyond the walls of the mosque. The illustrations are beautiful and detailed which brings the description of the mosque from the character’s point of view to life.
Theme(s):
Traditions, Family, Working Together
Personal Response
M.O Yuksel does a wonderful job incorporating language into the story. The story uses describing words and clear illustrations of the experience inside of a mosque. I think this story represents a child in their worship experiences well. The main character explains how they become distracted during longer services but still feel fulfillment being with their culture. The vocabulary is rich in this story explaining that some places of worship volunteer and help others out of love and peace.
Teaching Ideas
This story would be great as a read aloud. I think having the story read by the author or someone culturally connected to Islam and mosques. These individuals would be best suited to read this as they can accurately depict the language and experiences. This is a great story to use to explain that mosques, and places of worship, exist everywhere and may not all be referred to by the same name but looks fairly similar in every faith. This is a valuable story about community and connectedness.
Recommended Reading Level
Birth-PreK, Grade 01, Grade 02, Grade 03
