The Star Outside My Window by Onjali Q. Rauf

The Star Outside My Window by Onjali Q. Rauf is a beautifully heartwarming novel about a ten-year-old girl named Aniyah. After Aniyah’s mum dies, she is put in a foster home run by Mrs. Iwuchukwu, a foster mum, with her little brother Noah. When a star appears on the news channel, Aniyah is convinced that it is her mum’s heart that has transformed into a star. And then, later when the news channel announces that there will be a competition to give the star a name, Aniyah knows that she must break into the Royal Observatory to give the star the name it needs, the name of her mum. Along the way, Aniyah starts to piece together the truth about how her mum died, and in the end, the horrific truth is revealed about what truly happened that night.

Aniyah teams up with two of the other foster kids, Ben and Travis, to make a plan and stop the astronomers or “star hunters” from giving her mum’s star the wrong name. The children would convince Mrs. Iwuchukwu to let them go trick or treating on Halloween, and then, they would ride their bikes from Oxford all the way to London and try to contact a star hunter from there. However, their plan is doomed to fail from the beginning. 

After a couple of hours, it starts to rain. Later, Aniyah slips and sprains her ankle, and everything goes downhill after that. The children push through for their friends, and for Aniyah, in the hope that she might be able to rename the star as well as be able to find her dad and find her real family. However, as Aniyah soon realizes, she is already with her family, a family that loves her.

I really enjoyed this book because of the way Rauf writes the novel. It really feels like a ten-year-old is narrating, which further engages the reader as well as enhances the writing. Another reason is the metaphors Rauf has embedded into the novel. Like many books, the stars symbolize hope, the hope that burns in the people, especially children’s hearts that can’t easily be extinguished, just like even when she breaks her ankle, Aniyah pushes through because of the hope that she will be able to give the star its true name and maybe even find her dad.