Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I didn’t manage to post yesterday–it was our January PTA meeting, and that (plus conversations afterwards) absorbed most of the morning–but I did manage to finish reading Planet Omar: Incredible Rescue Mission aloud to my soon-to-be-11-year-old. It’s a fun series to read aloud, especially when your kiddo is right next to you enjoying the art (which runs the gamut from illustrations of the action to embellishments of single words to enhance the storytelling). It’s also a fun series, period–Omar and his friends and family are likable and entertaining, and their thought processes are appreciatable (yes, I know it’s not a word, but I’m over it) by kids and adults alike. (In different ways, of course. And clearly it’s a parentheses sort of day.)

In Incredible Rescue Mission, Omar and his friends are horrified to find their fantastic teacher replaced by a cranky sub, who says she’ll be their teacher for the rest of the year. Omar’s sure Mrs. Hutchinson has been abducted by aliens, and while one of his friends thinks that’s a crazy idea, they still decide to investigate the possibility. Only when Omar and his family take a trip to Pakistan for a relative’s wedding, that means their investigation is on hold–right?

Both my girlie and I could see the real solution to Mrs. Hutchinson’s disappearance, but in some ways that only added to the fun. The ‘Planet Omar’ books do a fantastic job of telling entertaining stories about a regular kid and his family, who just happen to be both British and Pakistani. We need more books for kids that focus on how much we have in common, no matter our ancestry. Yay for ‘Planet Omar’!

(Okay, that was totally cheesy and an unimpressive ending, but my family’s watching a sports thing five feet away, and concentrating has become a challenge. Bottom line? Try out the series–it’s totally worth your time.)