The Nearness Collection — First Edition Hardbacks

For the other end of the day.

A lost ribbon that felt too small to mention. A shape on the bedroom wall. A storm that flattened the tomato plants. Too many figs, and then too much in her head. A week of falling off a bike in the rain. A playtime spent standing by the fence.

The Nearness Collection is six illustrated stories about the feelings children already have, and the Qur'anic ideas they can begin to meet through them.

Each story is rooted in one surah.

There is no lesson pasted on afterwards. The meaning lives inside what Amira and Yusuf feel, say, whisper, kick, carry and try again.

Six hardbacks · Ages 3–7 · First Edition 2027

See inside the stories

Here are pages four and five of Too Many Figs, just as they are printed.

Amira has decided it would be much more sensible to carry every fig at once. The basket is full, her cardigan is full, and they very nearly fit. Later that night she will find out that worries stack the same way, and that there is a better way to carry them.

That is how all six books go. The feeling arrives first, exactly as a child would feel it, and the comfort comes after, in words they can keep.

The feeling comes first.

The ribbon really is lost. The plants really are flat. The bike really does end up in the grass six times on Sunday. The playtime really was spent standing on your own.

The child gets a feeling they recognise before being asked to understand anything.

Nearer Than a Whisper
Amira loses her ribbon, decides it is too small a thing to mention, and whispers it on the stairs instead.

Goodnight, Long Arms
There is a shape on the bedroom wall with long arms. It is only a cardigan, but feeling brave takes a little longer, so Amira learns two small surahs she can say into her own two hands.

The Bird in Yusuf's Chest
A gale flattens the tomato plants Yusuf grew, something hot and fluttery rises in his chest, and Baba sits down beside him on the wet back step.

Too Many Figs
Amira tries to carry all the figs at once, and finds out that night that worries stack the same way.

Wobble, Wobble, Grass
The stabilisers come off on Saturday, it rains all week, and Allah's promise turns out to say with, not after: the soft grass was there all along.

The Morning Always Comes
Amira is left out at playtime, and the next morning she sees a new girl standing in the exact same place.

Faith, on the days that do not go well

The Abundance Collection is for the part of the day when everything is going well. The fig, the seed, the tray on Eid morning.

There is a second question children ask, usually later, usually with the light off. Where is Allah when I feel alone?

These six answer it, in a form a five year old can actually hold. Not by making the hard thing disappear, which children do not believe, but by showing them where to take it.

One family, from one story to the next

Amira and Yusuf move through all six, with Mama, Baba and Teta, in the same house and the same garden as The Abundance Collection, a few months further into the year.

The tomato plants Yusuf grew in Who Makes It Grow? are the ones the storm flattens. The fig tree is the same tree. Your child will notice, and noticing is the point.

The First Edition pre-order

Rutab Books is an independent publisher. The first edition is one fixed print run, committed to before a single copy is sold. Pre-ordering holds one of those sets for your family, dispatching February 2027.

Six hardbacks in a keepsake slipcase · Complimentary delivery to the UK and eleven further countries

Made for the harder evenings

Not six lessons. Not six books about feelings with a verse added at the back.

Six stories written to sit on the same shelf as the first six, for the years when a lost ribbon, a shape on the wall and a flattened tomato plant are genuinely the whole world.