Omar decides he wants to try and fast with his family (on the weekends) but finds it too hard. Yet he was able to complete a fast the following weekend. Welcome to the imaginative brain of Omar! You might not know me yet,but once you open this book you’ll laugh so hard that snot will come out of your nose.* Using a text in this way adds value and purpose by giving children the opportunity to express their possible experiences and feelings on these topics. It may also give children something to relate to and aspire from. Furthermore, this text would lend itself well to many of the topics within the PSHE curriculum. Planet Omar has all of the everyday life family drama and silly humour of Tom Gates and Sam Wu, and it's wonderful to read a funny book for kids featuring a Muslim family.

Use the example of Omar getting lost and encourage the children to write a first-person narrative to describe the emotions and feelings that Daniel and Omar may be experiencing.In this story, Omar and his best friends Daniel and Charlie are on a mission to get a book signed by famous author, Angelina Kind. (Even just finding out the reason they want to get a signed copy was enough to make my eyes watery. I can't make it through one of these books without crying!) The adventure they go on is filled with unexpected challenges, which test them all in different ways. I loved following their journey and I felt their pain every time another thing went wrong. The way the story ended was brilliant and linked very cleverly to everything leading up to it. The whole story was a rush of heartwarming emotions, followed by feeling sorry for a character, indispersed with lots of laughter and I loved it! Wat ik ook leuk vond aan het boek is dat Omar en zijn familie moslims zijn en we van alles leren over verschillende dingen in hun leven. Ik wist al een flink aantal dingen, maar ik heb ook wat nieuwe dingen geleerd. Ik moest wel lachen (net als Omar en zijn zus) hoe zijn moeder soms door het huis vloog omdat ze haar hoofddoek weer eens kwijt was en ze de deur open moest doen. We lezen ook over verschillende feesten, zoals het suikerfeest die ik wel eens heb gevierd met mijn basisschoolklas en ook met een vriendinnetje dat moslim(a) was. I have to be honest, upon seeing the cover of this book I definitely wasn't pulled towards reading it. It looked too -comic like' for me. However, as the saying goes 'don't judge a book by it's cover', well that couldn't be more true in this case. I ended up loving it!! Firstly, the book is written in first person from the POV of Omar, a young muslim boy who has had to leave his old life behind and come and start a new one in England. I like this style of writing because it is almost childlike and very simplistic; therefore making it so much easier and accessible for any child to relate too. My favourite parts of the book were when Omar educated us as readers about his family traditions as Muslim's such as Ramadan and fasting and the different types of prayer. I think this would be a great book to use as a cross curricular link between RE and literacy, and I cannot wait to use it in my classroom.

As an adult, it has highlighted how much more there is to learn about all the wonderful people on this earth. Planet Omar has taught me some of the key traditions in Islam and inspired me to research further. This book also approaches issues such as bullying and prejudice as well as true friendship and forgiveness. These themes would be great PSHE topics to discuss with the children, relating to the book as well as personal experiences. This book opens up a cross curricular link to DT as quite frequently, Omar talks about the types of food that he eats which are native to his culture. As a class, children can find some of these recipes thatOmar has talked about and make them theirselves so children can experience food from different cultures and religions which they might not have tried otherwise. Omar’s funny, relatable narrative is the perfect answer to the call for both mirrors and windows to fill bookshelves with diverse stories.It would be good for the reader to have some knowledge of the Muslim faith, including holidays such as Ramadan and Eid. However, the book is very informative about some of these areas and is explained in a child friendly way. It would be a good text to read alongside learning about Muslim festivals. Previously published as 'The Muslims', this was the winner of the Little Rebels Award in June 2018. The text has been revised, expanded with new scenes and re-illustrated. About This Edition ISBN: Wildly imaginative Omar’s free-association narrative, laced with expressive hand lettering and Mafaridik’s playfully exaggerated line art, remains chipper and uplifting.”– Publishers Weekly

This book could be used really nicely as a class text because it offers many opportunities for discussions to be held around some difficult and emotional topics such as bullying and feeling accepted. Also this book could be placed in the book corner providing children with opportunities to quietly engage with the book alongside friends or independently. An exciting middle-grade debut starring a Muslim boy with a huge imagination. An NPR Best Book of the Year.This book could be used throughout the curriculum as a class text, most likely in key stage 2 due to the language used and being able to relate to the character due to age. For instance, due to the science mentioned in the book, this can be linked to science lessons, especially about experiments or genes and DNA. This could also be used in art lessons to focus on the illustrator and her style of drawing. Literacy and Art could be linked if children were to write their own stories in the style of this book using the different fonts for instance. These are just some ideas of how the book can be used in school however there are many other lessons and areas of the curriculum that it could be used in. I also enjoyed the choices of font used throughout this book. It encouraged my imagination to run wild. It makes the book more accessible for children, in particular the children who may struggle with reading. This is because it breaks up the text into small and manageable chunks having the images and crazy fonts alongside to help with comprehension of the story. This could be used to look at language and how it can be represented. Such as when Mian has used lightening bolts instead of 'S' in the sentence 'as fast as humanly possible'. The children could discuss her choice to replace the 'S' and why she might have chosen a lightening bolt. This will help to develop their creative writing and think deeper about their language choice. None of the other teachers will say where she is so Omar and his friends, Daniel and Charlie, decide they have to investigate. As they collect their evidence, everything seems to point to one unlikely conclusion: Mrs Hutchinson has been abducted by aliens!

This book follows a young Muslim boy called Omar. Him and his family have just moved house as his mum has just gotten her dream job. As a result of this, he has to start a new school and this made him very nervous as he thought his new teacher might be an alien. As you read this book, you follow the everyday life of Omar and you also go through the struggles that he is encountering at school, specifically with a young boy called Daniel. However, later on in the book when Omar and Daniel get lost, they forget all of their differences and join together to try and find the rest of their class.Young readers will have great fun on planet Omar! Our hero's tales of everyday life with his family and at school will keep everyone amused. Omar is worried because the family have just moved house - will he make friends at school? He does of course, but Daniel the school bully seems to have it in for him. A school trip to the Science Museum sees the two of them lost in London, but Omar knows just what to do and in the process realises that maybe he'd got Daniel wrong. The real pleasure of this book is Omar - his imagination, the pleasure he finds in ordinary things, his infectious zest for life make this irresistible reading. The book also offers insight into the life of an ordinary Muslim family, something we don't often get, and indeed, Zanib Mian has said that she wrote the book to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims. It's another reason to recommend this book, and I'm already looking forward to a new story and a return to Planet Omar. There is a range of teaching opportunities and themes the class teacher could use to help children have a discussion about the novel.