Our Ramadan

Mirror books — stories where children see their own culture, name, and family reflected — measurably strengthen cultural identity and belonging in early childhood. Rudine Sims Bishop's foundational 'windows and mirrors' framework, widely cited since 1990, argues that children of minority backgrounds rarely encounter themselves in books. Our Ramadan closes that gap directly, placing a Muslim child at the centre of a warm, affirming Ramadan narrative during the most formative identity window: ages 3–5.

Young children learn religious and cultural meaning best through sensory, narrative experiences rather than direct instruction. Psychologist Dr. Robert Coles, in his landmark study The Spiritual Life of Children (1990), found that children construct religious understanding through stories and rituals, not definitions. Our Ramadan leans into this — the smell of spices, the sweetness of the first date, Baba's voice reading Quran — giving children an emotional anchor to Ramadan before abstract concepts like fasting are introduced.

Bedtime reading is one of the highest-impact windows for value transmission between parent and child, according to a 2020 Harvard Graduate School of Education review on shared reading. Pairing this book with Ramadan bedtime routines — as Layla's story itself ends at tuck-in — creates a layered ritual: the book mirrors the moment. Parents report that children who hear faith stories at bedtime associate religious practice with safety and love rather than obligation, a distinction that shapes long-term religious engagement.