Sarah Musa’s Dawud Helps is one of our newest books available for pre-order. It tells the story of Dawud, whose Papa is struggling to make ends meet. Dawud wishes he could lend a hand, but Papa says he’s too young. But when his father is injured and can’t work, Dawud has to step in and show him he’s not too young after all.

Dawud Helps is a story that, for many reasons, is close to the author’s heart. First, it highlights families who experience financial struggles—the reality for many Muslim families around the world. “That’s the complexity of life,” Sarah says. “Sometimes things aren’t easy.” She remembers times during her childhood when her father went fishing to help provide food for her and her siblings. On one particular day, he kept snagging one fish after another until he had enough for each of his children, even the baby!

The second reason the story connects deeply with Sarah is that one of its themes is that food is all around us. “Foraging is something I think everyone should know about and they should learn to take advantage of, to know what kinds of food you can eat in the wilderness, because sometimes it could save your life.”

Sarah grew up as a farm girl in New Mexico and was always closely connected to nature. She spent her afternoons playing at a stream near her house and always returned home with itchy mosquito bites. Her grandmother taught her how to make jam and preserves.

Nowadays, she says, most of us have lost touch with traditional ways of living. “Now people are dependent on shops and the modern method of getting food, and we’ve just forgotten our roots, and forgotten that Allah is the one who provides all of these things,” Sarah says. “Even at the most basic level the plants that we grow, the animals that have grown, all of these are Allah’s creation…that’s where our rizq comes from.”

Click here to pre-order Dawud Helps in North America, and click here to pre-order it everywhere else!