Amir’s Blue Jacket

Reviewed by: Elma Ruth Harder – Muslim Education Foundation, Canada

Published by: Toronto: Ruqaya’s Bookshelf, 2022, 36pp. ISBN: 978-1989079263.

Amir’s Blue Jacket is about doing good deeds and remembering our loved ones after they are gone. When Amir finds his Grandpa’s old blue jacket, it reminds him of the long hugs he got from Grandpa. He decides to wash it. It shrinks. Mama gets him a new jacket but Amir doesn’t want a new jacket. Everything reminds him of the Grandpa who is no longer with him. There is an unstated question in the story: what is important in remembering our loved ones who have passed on? How can we keep their memory alive? Amir learns that it is not in the things they have left behind, but in the deeds we do in their memory.