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Summary - Sophia wakes up having slept a long time. The signs that she has gone back time become increasingly less subtle. Upon waking up she is greeted by an old farmer who speaks with an old timey accent which can be compared to the speech of characters in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if students have read that. There is also a connection in this book with the Wizard of Oz in that the main character is from Kansas and whisked away to another world. This demonstrates and interesting aspect of literature in how we can use literature to learn about the real world experience of other times. The author of this book (Najiyah Mayfield) does this creatively. She has clearly read Huckleberry Finn and uses it to write about the world of the 19th century while integrating it with her own unique 21st century experience. Points of connection for Muslim students
Page 32 “Sophia prayed the noon and afternoon prayers together, shortening them since she was traveling” - This is refers to something in Islam which is called praying qasr. As is explained here each of the 5 daily prayers has a certain amount of units that are one e it called “rakas.” The noon and afternoon prayer each have 4 rakas, but when a Muslim is traveling on a journey they may combine (meaning pray them at the same time) and shorten these prayers by making each one 2 rakes instead of 4. Students will likely know about this procedure of shortening the prayers, and have likely done it at one time or another in their life. It would not surprise me however if they do not know the term qasr so if you wanted to you could share that with them and they might be impressed that you dropping some Islamic knowledge on them. Page 33 "I'm Sophia Ahmed" - The name "Ahmed" is a well know Arabic name that is common in both the Arab and non-Arab world as both a first name for males and family name, and the Islamic naming pattern is such that both girls and boys take their father's name as their middle name. As such many Muslim immigrants end up with their father or grandfather's name as their surname when they immigrate to the West. The name Ahmed is derived from the Arabic word hamd which means "praise" - the name Muhammad is also derived from this word. The name Ahmed means "much praised."
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