Accidental Trouble Magnet: Book 1 (Planet Omar)

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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. Welcome to the imaginative brain of Omar! You might not know me yet,but once you open this book you’ll laugh so hard that snot will come out of your nose.* 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 has all of the everyday life family drama and silly humour of Tom Gates and Sam Wu, and it's wonderful to read a funny book for kids featuring a Muslim family. One day after school, Charlie comes over to Omar’s house for dinner and once again Mrs Rodgers is overheard referring to her neighbours as ‘the Muslims’ in a negative manner.A lot of Pakistani food is mentioned throughout the story so if the reader has some idea of what these foods are it would help them to visualise what is being discussed (however, taste testing would make a fun lesson!) 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”. There is a range of teaching opportunities and themes the class teacher could use to help children have a discussion about the novel. Omar and his family have just moved, and he is NOT excited about starting at a new school. What if the work is too hard or the kids are mean or the teacher is a zombie alien?!

It’s not so much a dislike of the book, but I don’t like that Mrs Rodgers and Daniel actually needed to revive an act of kindness before being non-judgmental. I think it’s a shame that this is what happens and children have to suffer this.it is commented on that Mrs Rodgers views are probably front what she has read in newspapers and how those of the Muslim faith are often linked to terrorism and that therefore is the basis of her opinions. Again, this is a true representation of how many people make their views and acts as a reminder to not always trust the media. The first and most obvious teaching point comes from the approach to different religions, in this case the characters were Muslim. Mian has included facts about this religion, such as the names for each prayer of the day, which will allow the children to learn about Muslims beliefs and traditions whilst reading. This would be a great teaching opportunity, to get the children to learn about different religions and appreciate the differences between people. En heel veel toestanden, dat is zeker! Planeet Omar is een boek voor kinderen van een jaar of 7 met een uitbundige typografie en lekker veel verbeelding. Ik zal niet zeggen dat er wat uit mijn neus spoot, maar hard lachen deed ik zeker.

Yet when mean Mrs Rogers has an accident, Omar's family is there to help. And when Omar and bully Daniel get stranded on a school trip in London, Omar realises that Danny isn't so tough after all... This book opens up a cross curricular link to DT as quite frequently, Omar talks about the types of food that he eats which are native to his culture. As a class, children can find some of these recipes thatOmar has talked about and make them theirselves so children can experience food from different cultures and religions which they might not have tried otherwise. Want met een nieuwe school komen nieuwe kinderen, en kinderen kunnen zo gemeen zijn tegen elkaar. “Jij bent moslim… Jullie kunnen maar beter teruggaan naar je eigen land voordat we jullie er allemaal uitschoppen.” En hoewel dit boek zich in Engeland afspeelt, is dit ook al maar al te herkenbaar in een Nederlandse context. Deze agressie komt voort uit onbegrip, uit een buurvrouw die niets te maken wil hebben met haar nieuwe buren - ze maken herrie, ze gebruiken te veel kruiden en dat stinkt - totdat ze een keer oog in oog met elkaar komen te staan. Allebei mensen. 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

Use the style of the pictures and bold and different sized writing in the book to encourage children to create a book of their own lifestyles or challenging situations they have experienced. None of the other teachers will say where she is so Omar and his friends, Daniel and Charlie, decide they have to investigate. As they collect their evidence, everything seems to point to one unlikely conclusion: Mrs Hutchinson has been abducted by aliens! Ik vond het alleen heel jammer dat wederom (het lijkt wel een trend want ik zie het in steeds meer boeken) dat pestkopjes maar vergeven en bevriend moeten worden want boehoehohoeeh ze hebben het zo moeilijk vanwege (vul hier iets in wat toepasselijk is) en dus kunnen ze er niks aan doen dat ze een stel etters zijn. Ik vind het gewoon echt niks. Ik ben zelf een flinke tijd in mijn leven gepest, en sorry ik zou echt geen tiet geven om een zielige sobstory van een pester. Je hebt mijn leven verpest, me helemaal gebroken, ga weg met je sobstory. Dat geeft je echt geen reden om iemands leven te verpesten. Plus, het voelt voor mij gewoon alsof het een slecht bericht geeft aan mensen die gepest zijn. Ja, maar die arme pester(s) kon/kunnen er toch niks aan doen. Ach en wee. : Het boek begint als de familie van Omar net is verhuisd naar een nieuw huis en dit helaas ook een nieuwe school betekent. Voor geen enkel kind leuk, maar Omar noemt zichzelf ook nog eens een ware “probleemmagneet”, want overal waar hij gaat trekt hij problemen aan. Maar of dat altijd de schuld van Omar is? Mrs Hutchinson is the best teacher in the universe. She’s the only reason Omar isn’t in a really bad mood about the start of the new school term. So imagine the trauma of finding a fierce, crinkly-faced supply teacher, with spiky heels and a personality to match, has replaced Mrs H at the front of the classroom.This book could be used throughout the curriculum as a class text, most likely in key stage 2 due to the language used and being able to relate to the character due to age. For instance, due to the science mentioned in the book, this can be linked to science lessons, especially about experiments or genes and DNA. This could also be used in art lessons to focus on the illustrator and her style of drawing. Literacy and Art could be linked if children were to write their own stories in the style of this book using the different fonts for instance. These are just some ideas of how the book can be used in school however there are many other lessons and areas of the curriculum that it could be used in. I like the themes in the book and I enjoyed exploring Omar’s positive thoughts to help him understand that he is different. I liked the different fonts and pictures in the book. This will encourage children to read the book and challenge themselves to identify what the images represent. As a reader I like how the author chose to present some of the words as illustrations as this made it easier to follow and was also engaging. Also I like how the author has explained many of the key words in a child friendly manned which would help both children and teachers to understand their meanings and read them within context. 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.