Accidental Trouble Magnet: Book 1 (Planet Omar)

i never feel complelled to write a book review but for this one I will type away. One reason, is to enccourage you parents out there to pick up this book and read with your yuong ones. You will all laugh young, old and elders. I read the book with my 5 and 7 years old. we all took part reading out loud with grandparents arround who enjoyed it with us. Second, it is a multi layered book with messages that children will get, think about and ask. Being a muslim brought up in the west and now a muslim parent in the west, finding this book was like finding a gym that speaks our language and understands our circumstances. In many parts of the book we would stop and one of us would say "that happened to me". It is very relatable. Third, and most importantly, it was light and fun enccouraging my kids to wait eagrly for Planet Omar reading time. We read it in 1 week but made it a family fun time where my mum brewed the coffee and brought out the cookies. I highly reccomend this book if you have children, interested to know how funnly normal muslim families can be or if you just want to laugh and don't mind the innocent silliness of children.

This book is a brilliant book for a child of around Year Four age. For our class, who have visited both the Wonderlab and the Regent's Park mosque it is just about perfect! But for any group of children who have members of a different religion or background, it will be an important story of how understanding and appreciation can develop. I think Asian Muslim children in the UK in particular will enjoy this book as they will be able to see themselves in it, but it has something for every child. Good fun and a good asset to a diverse library.

“I really liked how many chapters it had and the story is really interesting. Omar did something quite naughty but in school he was actually quite good.” This is the review by my 7-year-old who absolutely loved reading this book. He has previously read Migo and Ali and now we are going ahead and getting all the books in the Omar series :)

Returned the book as we realised we already had the book in its previous published form called 'the muslims'. It was the same story but republished with a new title and cover.

I purchased this book for my 7 year old daughter hoping she would start to have a love for reading as I have an 11 year old that doesn't like to read. Turns out this book is a true game changer as both my girls loved reading it and couldn't put it down. Their comments are "it's so funny the family are like us... the neighbour cracks me up!" It's so relatable that they can't put the book down, I brought the entire series including the world book day one. Shared this book with my friends 9 year old son (also does not like to read) he finished the book in less then a week! A note to the writer from the kids "please please write more stories, we are saving each book as we don't want them to run out so quickly" just amazing.

My 8 year old who like Tom Gates, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and such graphic novels, really enjoyed this book. But this is more wholesome and innocent than the Wimpy Kid, which i prefer. He was quite chuffed to see the hero being a Muslim, like himself. This book touches issues such as change, bullying and racism without going in great depth but in a way that is suitable for a primary school aged reader. I enjoyed reading it as part of our family read aloud. I read a review saying it was "frustrating" how Omar's parents are scientists yet they instruct him to "spit" to his side to dispel the effects of bad dreams. This comes from the example of prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) who taught us how bad dreams are from Satan and his likes and how a certain supplication accompanied with the act of forcefully blowing in short bursts (not actual full on spit, it's hard to describe) will repel Satan. There is no contradiction here: one can be a scientist and have faith. In fact it is very appropriate that one who knows more about the way the natural and physical world works would have greater reverence for the One who created it. We were gutted to find we need to wait so long for the next Omar book!

perfect

My son loves this book so much. He could relate to the character so much. He kept telling me the character Omar is like him in so many ways. He found the book so interesting and funny. He could hardly put the book down. He doesn't like reading that much but I didn't have to tell him to read this book..he couldn't stop reading. He finished the book in 2 days! And then he read it again! He learnt lots of new things too. I decided to buy him the other 2 books aswell. His enjoying it so much. I wish there were more books like these.