Read Planet Omar 2 – Unexpected Super Spy free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Zanib Mian's Unexpected Super Spy is a warm, giggly Planet Omar story for 7 year olds about a boy who gives up his Nerf blaster money to save his mosque.
Omar has been saving for ages. He smashes open his Stormtrooper money box (there was a rubbery plug at the bottom all along, as his big sister Maryam kindly points out) and counts out $42.53. That's got to be enough for a Nerf laser blaster and an epic battle with his best friends Charlie and Daniel.
Then the news comes through on the family WhatsApp group. The wood in the mosque roof is rotting. Unless they raise $30,000, it'll have to close.
This is the "secret-smile mosque", where Omar's dad always looks happiest. So Omar hands over every cent. Then he and his friends get planning. There are chores, homemade things to sell and, best of all, a talent contest. And then some of the money they've raised goes missing.
Omar's imagination is the star here. He can't just think something, he has to picture it. A monster the size of an apartment building flicks the mosque apart and puts the pieces on its ice cream. When the imam says helping the mosque earns you a house in heaven, Omar designs his dream house on the spot, with a kitchen made entirely of Oreos that grow back when you snap them off.
His family are brilliant company too. He and Maryam have a running game of made-up insults (it started when Mum dropped a butternut squash on her toe), which is how Omar ends up being called a "daydreaming piece of ostrich gut".
Faith is part of everyday life here, told with real affection. Prayers, the imam and the mosque community sit alongside Xbox arguments and snot jokes, and nobody makes a big thing of it. If your reader's family goes to a mosque, they'll probably recognise a lot. If not, it's a lovely, easy way in.
This is the American edition, so it's Mom, dollars and cookies all the way through, even though Omar's story is set in England.
It's a very gentle read for this shelf. If your reader likes a funny narrator with a head full of pictures, Omar is great fun.
Omar, Charlie and Daniel are back in Incredible Rescue Mission. This time their favourite teacher vanishes and a very strict one arrives, and Omar is sure it's the work of aliens.
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