Another Small Square Right in Your Backyard

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Continuing with our review of the One Small Square series, we'll look at One Small Square: Backyard.

This book, like One Small Square: Woods, is an adventure wrapped up nicely between the covers of a book. This book, however, must be read with some caution because there are several references to the "survival of the fittest" and evolution, which conflict with the shari'a. Parent-teachers and other educators can easily re-word these sentences to avoid teaching children these ideas. Children can be told that it is Allaah who decides who lives and who dies, it is Allaah who provides for all of His creation and no other (i.e. nature, man, etc.) has any say in this. Alhamdulillaah, children can still learn much from this book and there is so much for them to discover among its pages, but it is not a book that should be left for children to read on their own.

Like the other books in the series, the activities get children out into the natural world and they (i.e. the activities) encourage children to notice and pay attention to the ayaat of Allaah. As well, the illustrations can provide children with sustained periods of exploration; there is so much to discover on each page but not too much that the senses are overwhelmed.

Here is what Amazon.com has to say about One Small Square: Backyard : An exciting journey of science discovery is as near as your own backyard. Just one small square is alive with creepers and crawlers, lifters and leapers, singers, buzzers, climbers, builders, and recyclers. Backyard invites children ages 7 and up to become nature lovers by looking, listening, touching, and smelling the world from the ground up! ...[With] the unique One Small Square series of science activity books ...children can explore exotic and familiar ecosystems in detail, one small square at a time.

Until the next book in'shaa Allaah...