Alice Green

This book was very interesting to read and I liked some parts of it, but disliked other parts. I liked the extra-textual features that it included such as pictures and fun facts. The pictures gave a better idea of what the celebrations looked like and they show the daily lives of Muslim people during these holidays. The fun facts made the book more engaging and provided a fun extra tidbit of information. The only thing I disliked about this book was that there were a lot of new vocabulary words that weren't explained, so parts of the book were somewhat confusing. The main message of this book is that Muslims have many holidays and traditions in their culture and they often celebrate them with food and family.… (lisätietoja)

I didn’t strongly dislike or like this book. I generally don’t have strong feels towards informational texts unless they tell a story while informing. I think this book did a good job of explaining the Muslim festival in a language all cultures could understand, but I wasn’t personally very interested. When the text introduced unfamiliar language, the author would bold the vocabulary word. In addition to the definition given in the glossary, the author used contextual language to help define the word within the text as well. One thing I did like about this book was its textual and extra-textual features. The book included a table of contents, index page, and glossary. In addition to those traditional features, each page had its own extra-textual features. On every page, there was a box with a “Did you know?” fun fact. Most of the time the fun fact matched one of the images on the page. For example, towards the end of the book there is a fact about the Muslim tradition for when a family member passes away. The fact talks about how the son pours rose water onto his mother’s grave after she has passed in celebration of her life. The image accompanying this fact was a boy in traditional Muslim clothing pouring rose water from a beautiful ceramic vase. The pictures were always relevant to the text, and helped the reader better understand the information being presented. I think the main idea of this story it to show the importance of other cultures holidays. In particular, this book is about educating those who don’t celebrate Id-Ul-Adha by teaching them about the traditions of the festival.… (lisätietoja)

I enjoyed reading this book because I found it easy to follow, intriguing, and well structured. The big idea in this book was to inform readers about a common Muslim celebration. Firstly, Alice Green made this book easy to follow and informative by putting important words in bold and having a glossary in the back of the book for reference. For example, sacrifice was in bold in the reading while also being in the back of the book with its definition: "to kill a person, or animal, as an offering to God." Secondly, Green made this book intriguing by including "did you know" facts. For example, one of the facts stated "Muslims always face the direction of the Ka'bah when they pray." These facts allow readers to be more interested when learning short and quick facts. Thirdly, Green did a nice job of laying out the book in an accessible and understandable way. The titles were large, the pictures had explanations beside them with a different colored background, and the facts were in separate boxes to separate them from the text. This layout makes the information clear. The reader can see that the explanations go with the pictures and that the facts are separate from the main text.… (lisätietoja)

This book was an informational non-fiction book. I typically don’t like reading non-fiction books however, I thought that this was a great book. It really provides vibrant photographs and meaningful information about different Muslim traditions. The book provides the reader with the historical background of this festival as well as showing the different ways that Muslims celebrate it. The book has many great text features including pictures, headings, captions, did you know facts, etc. The pictures in the book are great for capturing the moment and allowing the reader to visualize what the different traditions look like. The main idea of this book is obviously the festival Id-Ul-Adha, however the message to the reader is focusing on just how important and meaningful this festival is to the Muslim people. The book contains the historical background of the purpose of this festival and contains the many different ways that Muslims celebrate this festival, including the food eaten and the ways families spend it together. Overall I really enjoyed this book and I loved learning about this tradition!… (lisätietoja)