Planet Omar: Unexpected Super Spy

Name: Planet Omar: Unexpected Super Spy
Author: Zanib Mian

by Zanib Mian

Ages 7–10 Reading age 8 Short chapters Set in school funnywarm

The mosque needs saving from closure, so Omar and his friends set up a fundraising campaign and an unauthorised surveillance operation.

A story about children and families, funny and warm in tone. We would put it with children of 7–10, and at a reading age of about 8 for reading alone.

Nothing flagged

We have not flagged any content in this one that a parent would usually want warning about.

Part of a series

This is book 2 of the Planet Omar series, so there is more to read if it goes down well — which is worth a great deal with a reluctant reader.

Our take on this book

Omar's local mosque is under threat of closure, so he and his friends throw themselves into a fundraising campaign — and, inevitably, an entirely unauthorised surveillance operation to catch whoever is behind the trouble. Zanib Mian narrates in Omar's exuberant voice, scattered with doodles and jokes and lists, and the great warmth of the series is how naturally it shows a British Muslim family's ordinary life: funny, chaotic, loving, and entirely relatable to any child regardless of background. It is short-chaptered and heavily illustrated, easy and inviting for a newly independent reader, and its mild peril is strictly of the caper variety with nothing to alarm. For a seven- to ten-year-old it is a genuinely funny, big-hearted read that also, without ever preaching, offers a mirror to Muslim children and a window for everyone else — one of the reasons it has been so widely embraced by schools.