Book Review: Ramadan on Rhama Road

If you’ve ever wondered what Ramadan is like or what some of the foods are that are used to break the fast, Ramadan on Rahma Road: A Recipe Storybook is a great resource. The book, with story by Razeena Omar Gutta, recipes by Faaiza Osman and illustrations by Atieh Sohrabi, explores different culinary traditions around iftar, the celebration at the end of the fast.

All the families are making something traditional for the feast, and what’s especially fun about this story is that you can just read it as a story, but there are 25 recipes included as well. So if you’re in the classroom you can talk about what goes into the different foods and if children have tried them.

If you’re reading at home you can pick a few recipes to try in your own kitchen. Some of these recipes might be familiar to you, either as things you make yourself or have eaten before, but others may be new to you. A sampling:

Chicken Tikka from Pakistan
Jollof Rice from Nigeria
Traditional Uyghur Laghman Noodles
Koshari, an Egyptian dish with lentils, rice, macaroni and onions in tomato sauce
Strawberry Pavlova from Austrialia

The recipes are meant to show that there are people who honor Ramadan around the world, and even the people in one neighborhood might come from different traditions.

After everyone has made their food they gather together and wait for the sun to set. Then everyone has a date and some water and the feast can begin.

The end of the book covers what Ramadan is (a month of fasting, prayer and good works) and includes even more recipes for drinks, toppings and yet more main dishes and sweets, like Nigerian fried dough called puff puff and sweet potato pie from the African American tradition.

This book is fun as a story book, a cookbook or both to learn more about the people who mark Ramadan and the food that brings them together.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback. Published 2026 by Barefoot Books. Suggested retail price $9.99.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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