Amira & Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds - Samira Ahmed

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"On the day of a rare super blue blood moon eclipse, twelve-year-old Amira and her little brother, Hamza, can’t stop their bickering while attending a special exhibit on medieval Islamic astronomy. While stargazer Amira is wowed by the amazing gadgets, a bored Hamza wanders off, stumbling across the mesmerizing and forbidden Box of the Moon. Amira can only watch in horror as Hamza grabs the defunct box and it springs to life, setting off a series of events that could shatter their world—literally.

Suddenly, day turns to night, everyone around Amira and Hamza falls under a sleep spell, and a chunk of the moon breaks off, hurtling toward them at lightning speed, as they come face-to-face with two otherworldly creatures: jinn.

The jinn reveal that the siblings have a role to play in an ancient prophecy. Together, they must journey to the mystical land of Qaf, battle a great evil, and end a civil war to prevent the moon—the stopper between realms—from breaking apart and unleashing terrifying jinn, devs, and ghuls onto earth. Or they might have to say goodbye to their parents and life as they know it, forever.…"

 This was a quick read and I didn't take many notes, so it's going to be a short review. Character development was mostly solid - I really enjoyed Amira and Hamza's relationship, and I thought the two Jinn that brought them to Qaf were both great and balanced each other out well. I did feel like development was frontloaded and the characters that appeared early were fleshed out really well, while then development got skimpy as the book went on, but I suppose that's to be expected...there were just a couple cases where the reader got strangely little given the importance of their role in the story.

I thought the adventure started out very strong, with high stakes and a time crunch. But again, it seemed like partway through the book that fell off a little. Almost like "ope, this book is getting too long, gotta wrap it up!" I was much more engrossed in the earlier challenges than I was in the last couple of Big Deal final challenges - no spoilers, but when they came up against the big bad, I thought maybe it was a fake out because it seemed too easy given all the buildup to it. That said, it was still a good story, and I think my students would get into it. Adding it to my school library, for sure!