Islamic Nursery Rhymes by Elizabeth Lymer - A Review
Description: Islamic Nursery Rhymes is an endearing collection of nursery rhymes for young children to learn about the beautiful ways of Islam in a lovely experience of singing with their parents and elders. The rhymes in the book are traditional nursery rhymes reworded with timeless Islamic meaning. For example, ‘Oranges and Lemons’ is an historical rhyme about ringing the bells of East London churches as a man made his journey to his execution – and the version here, entitled ‘Assalam Alaykum’, is about mosques in East London spreading salaam (peace) and news of prayer time. The illustrations by Fatimah De Vaux Davies are attractive and highly detailed (yet faceless) to delight children and engage their interest in the actions of practicing Muslims. For example, one illustration depicts Muslims gathering around a large Qur’an that is spilling out light. In another, Muslims are performing ritual prayers upon the earth, while boats sail, and airplanes and rockets fly. These beautiful Islamic nursery rhymes can be used as songful remembrance of Allah as a resource for developing pre-recitation skills before reading the Qur'an.
Author: Elyzabeth Lymer
Illustrator : Fatimah De Vaux Davies
Publisher: Mindworks Publishing
Price : $9.13 on Amazon for the paperback and $1.99 for the Kindle version
What to expect: Easy rhymes to keep your young children alert and focused
Why do we need nursery rhymes and Islamic rhymes for that matter? We need nursery rhymes because it has been proven that rhymers are readers and help children in five ways summarized below:
- Language development
- Reading skills
- Math Concepts
- Creative Dramatization
- Comfort and Support
As Muslims, instilling an Islamic foundation to our children would be the sixth reason why we would want to teach them Lymer's rhymers. They are indeed a good way to teach Islam to youngsters in my opinion. My son loves sounds and I don't let him listen to regular rhymes with instruments so this collection is truly a blessing. He gets excited and jams to it. Alhamdullilah for an halal alternative.
I also like the fact that each nursery rhyme in the paperback indicates which traditional children song to rhyme it to. But if you want to buy the the actual MP3 songs to know how the author actually made it work, you can purchase yours on Google Play, Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, and/or many other places where tunes are sold. I definitely recommend it to Muslim mothers.
*I received a free copy PDF and a free MP3 soundtrack for my honest opinion.*