Ahmed’s Journey by Jill Apperson Manly is a fairly quick children’s book with engaging illustrations detailing the experience of a young boy who deals with the anxiety of participating in the traditional camel races of his country and family. A wonderful way of introducing more diversity into the available children’s books, Ahmed’s Journey portrays emotions and feelings that just about any child in a new situation, especially one heaped in tradition and expectation, will feel and have to navigate.

Emotions are always an especially important aspect of life for children to read about, learn from, and experience themselves. This book does a brilliant job of portraying these emotions and how a young man learns about them in himself and manages to work his way through the feelings in order to function within his life. And for any young child who does not yet have the words to discuss their own emotions, to see it in a book is likely to be majorly beneficial.

I really appreciated the message within this short story and found the illustrations pleasant to look at though I wouldn’t call them exceptional. I definitely appreciated the diversity portrayed in the book and the opportunity to connect with and learn about a young man in the Middle East. This is definitely a book I would suggest to have on your shelves for your kids for a variety of reasons.

I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

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