Journey of the Midnight Sun

Journey of the Midnight Sun by Shazia Afzal and Aliya Ghareis inspired by the story of The Midnight Sun Mosque and it’s journey from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Inuvik, Northwest Territories.

A mosque is the heart of a community for Muslims. Living up near the Arctic Circle, it can be challenging to build a mosque fit for the community. Thanks to the generosity of the Zubaidah Tallahassee Foundation a mosque was built for the community but it needed to get from Winnipeg to Inuvik. It took many people to get the mosque up north but the journey was a success.

Young readers have an opportunity to learn of the generosity and the community that came together to accomplish this incredible achievement. As mentioned, the mosque is the heart of the community and it is inspiring to know of all the things that needed to happen in order to make the 4000km journey a success. Shazia Afal is conservative with her text, each page only featuring one sentence of text. It’s the illustrations by Aliya Ghare that help tell the story. Journey of the Midnight Sun is almost a wordless book, allowing the pictures to convey the effort and importance of the journey.

I would have loved to have had some back matter with photos of the actual mosque and perhaps some links for further reading to extend the life of the story. Since the text is so simple, this story will most likely have a shorter shelf life but it does make for a great book to share with younger readers: preschoolers and kindergarteners.