Hassan is a typical teenager in many ways. Almost Sunset is a graphic novel that follows him during that one month of the year when he’s not typical, and that’s the period of Ramadan. He’s a teen whose family respects the traditions of Ramadan and all of the sacrifices and inconveniences that accompany it. This is a graphic novel that’s not about religion, but is about the people and families that follow it. It touches on the practices of Islam, but doesn’t espouse or preach its beliefs.
Instead, Almost Sunset entirely devotes itself to the frustrations of not eating from sunrise to sunset. Ramadan has just started, and Hassan can’t just put his teen-life on hold. He plays on the soccer team, wants to play video games, has behavioral obligations, needs time to unwind, has to keep his grades up, and is burning the candle on both ends. Some of Hassan’s friends celebrate Ramadan too, but for one reason or another are less devout than he is. They play soccer outside while everyone goes to pray. They close their eyes when they eat during the day so that Allah doesn’t see them. In short, they’re the kids that take shortcuts because they’re kids and their parents don’t catch them. They’re like every kid ever.
As Ramadan stretches on Hassan finds it more difficult to do what’s expected of him. He starts lying to his friends when he’s supposed to eat with them. One of them is aware of why he’s fasting and encourages him to share the reason with everybody. His soccer skills are suffering. A friend of his, who has been a friendly competition for years, is steadily making better passes and scoring more. To make matters more complicated, this friend is a girl, which in his teenage mind is somehow worse when she’s showing up his game. At some point in elementary school, Hassan freaked out during a game, which his friend’s still chide him over.
Coach is sympathetic towards Hassan and asks him why his performance is so inconsistent. When He says it’s because he’s hungry due to not being able to eat during day, the coach shares that he understands what he’s going through because he’s Muslim too. They bond over the struggles of observing Ramadan and he’s given a fresh boost of energy knowing that he’s not alone. His school work is a different story. He’s still sleeping during some classes, and is suddenly failing math.
Unfortunately, this exacerbates his flailing soccer game, he freaks out when that girl starts doing better than him during practice and pushes her down. His red card violation gets him kicked off of the team. Hassan manages to find some solid footing and makes baby steps towards getting everything back on track. His grades rebound, and coach allows him back on the team in time for the playoffs. In that game, the team works effectively, but still comes up short when the final whistle blows.
Almost Sunset is an all-age graphic novel about coping with things that aren’t going your way. Your family is weird and different. Your parents are really embarrassing. Your (insert characteristic here) isn’t like others and puts you at a disadvantage. Take the Muslim aspect out of the graphic novel and it’s a skeleton template for any tween or low-teenager.
The elephant in the room is the unbelievable aspect of a kid not sharing the fact that they’re unable to eat due to Ramadan. Having taught various grades during Ramadan, in addition to supervising many after-school activities, I can vouch for the fact that today’s kids speak up about it. Our 15 YO, who is not Muslim, is fluent in how Ramadan impacts his friends. Kids I don’t know, but have taught for a day will effortlessly speak up and over-share the fact that they can’t eat during lunch. Kids like Hassan surely exist, but are much less common than they used to be.
More often than not, kids in elementary school will whine about it, as opposed to not telling coaches, teachers or friends. There will be some kids who don’t want to shine a light on it, but more often than not they’ll readily share the information because it makes it all about them. Anything any kid can do to legitimately make it about them is an instance that they won’t pass up.
So, is Almost Sunset a good graphic novel? It’s a graphic novel that will speak to the Ramadan crowd. This graphic novel is going to be a custom fit for those Muslim kids who think the world is against them. Nothing is fair because they can’t eat for almost 13 hours. How will I ever get through the day when I can’t eat? Again, this isn’t most Muslim kids that I’ve taught, but it’ll be a couple of them. It’ll also be a good graphic novel for those kids genuinely curious about other cultures.
The graphic novel has a comic book feel to it with multiple pages having no dialogue. This will certainly help reluctant readers who stumble into Almost Sunset. However, the mere fact that it mentions “Muslim family” on the cover will limit who picks the graphic novel up. Much in the same way a book’s cover blurb could say “Jewish family” or “Christian family”, it’ll put off those who don’t want to read anything that could be associated with religion or the people that practice it. That’s a shame because there are many inspiring books about people who practice said religions that translate across the board, once you look past a layer. It’s especially rare to have a graphic novel do it in an enjoyable manner.
Almost Sunset is by Wahab Algarmi and is available on Harper Alley, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.
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