Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet: 1

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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.

I love, love, love this book! I will have a copy of this text in all my future classes and would recommend it to all. Previously published as The Muslims, which won the Little Rebels book prize in 2018, this newly illustrated and reworked version of Zanib Mian's hilarious, sweet story is an absolute delight. Planet Omar can link to stories about friendship and overcoming bullies, such as Cloud Busting. There is also links to books about acceptance of others such as Skellig by David Almond, Beegu by Alexis Deacon and Welcome to Our World by Moira Butterfield. There is also a link to The Twits by Ronald Dahl as Omar believes that people with ugly thoughts are ugly people and that appearance isn’t the key to being a good person. Ronald Dahl writes “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely”.

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Omar is a funny character, and I loved reading his observations about his family, being Muslim, his classmates, and everything else. I also enjoyed the family dynamics between his science-loving parents, his relatable older sister, and his mischief-making younger brother.

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

Investigate other chapter books with sketchy pictures, such as Planet Omar Adventure and Horrid Henry books. Think about the similarities and differences between the books are the themes the same. I would recommend this book as an English class read. The book is full of different themes that the class teacher can explore with the children. I think the text is useful to teach children about the power of love and the influence our siblings, families, and friends have on us. The teacher can use the main character (Omar) to help children explore Omar’s imaginative world and lifestyle. The class teacher may focus on the importance of Omar creating an imaginative world and having the support of his family to help him manage with difficult or scary situations he experiences (moving house, being bullying, getting lost, etc). From reading the book the class teacher may help the children to understand the importance of sharing their problems with responsible adults they trust. The teacher can also explore with their class the Muslim religion and help the children to understand the different faiths, festivals and traditions.

The teacher can use the example of Omar to help children discuss and understand the importance of friendships and bullying. The teacher could help the children to develop their knowledge of the importance of happy friendships positively influencing our emotional well-being(self-esteem and self-confidence and mental health). So give me all those troublesome boy books. Give me more of them even! Give me differently abled troublesome boys. Give me (please please give me) a troublesome transgender boy who gets into all kinds of mischief. Give me Native American boys. Give me Asian American boys. Give me boys with stutters and bald boys and army brats and all the different kinds of troublesome boys that are out there. To say nothing of equally troublesome girls! Omar is doing his part, but he can’t do it alone. If we want to show our child readers the wide, wonderful, wild world out there in all its myriad forms, we need as many different perspectives as we can find. And until that happens, let’s hand Omar to as many kinds as we can name. Because as far as I’m concerned, funny books that also prove to be smart and socially conscious (not to mention anti-racist) might help us get out of the mess this world is in. At the beginning of this book, the reader is given some information about each member of Omar's family and a little illustration of them which I thought was a really good idea because the reader then instantly gets an idea of Omar's life.

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The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.

This book was an enjoyable read overall. When I began reading, the first thing I compared this book too was those of David Walliams' due to the use of different fonts on certain words to make them stand out - like Walliams, the chosen fonts tend to be somewhat related to what the word is saying, e.g 'a big cheeky grin' is written on a face in the shape of a smile. 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. It teaches children that bullying or unkind behaviour can be overcome, and often getting to know the person can be the best way to solve this. Ondertussen zien we ook dat Omars zus in de puberteit belandt is en dat ze daardoor soms, voor Omar, vreemd reageert. Opeens boos worden, weglopen, maar dan ook weer heel vrolijk en blij zijn.Omar, a British Pakistani boy, and his family have just moved to a new home in London, where he will be starting at a new school.