Fits well with The Elephant is Running and other books I am reading. I wish I knew how the program is working now today!

While his story is interesting, I was not extremely captivated by his writing style. I read it because I was attending and Interfaith Youth Conference in August 2020 during which he made a speech and where I had it signed. ( )

An inspiring story with a powerful message: we have to do more than just fight against fundamentalism; we need to offer (and explicitly offer to youth) a meaningful alternative. Compassion and understanding across perceived boundaries and differing beliefs is more than just a nice idea. It is worth our work; our dedication; our sacrifice. Patel's story is interesting (though it skirts self-advertisement at a certain point). I would have been interested in a little more on what brought Patel to embracing Islam as a young adult. ( )

Muslim

Acts of Faith technically is the story of an American Muslim, but that part of the subtitle really throws off your mindset for what the book is meant to be. The point of this book is more the “Struggle for the Soul of a Generation,” which is the other half of the secondary title. The author is telling the story of his life in America and how he found a way to create the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that encourages young people from all around the world, with any religious belief, to come together and do acts of kindness and charity for those in need. The story will move you, no matter your faith or you lack of belief in any one religion or another, but do not expect it to be about an American Muslim beyond the fact that the author is both of those things. I picked up the book thinking it would somehow show struggles in being accepted and how those struggles formed his actions later on, which didn’t really happen.

Still, this book is a must read for anyone who wants to help their child (or a pupil in their class) open their mind to the world around them, discover the diversity of culture and religion, yet find similarities within everything in order to get along. There is no doubt that this is a world in need of young people who stand up for peace and love rather than who go out and blow things up out of anger and hate. As the book says, the twenty-somethings who are acting with violence and hatred are doing this because it is how they were taught, it is what they were told to think. Subject someone at a young age to literature that says people with orange fingernails are all creatures of the devil and that is what they will believe. Take the same children and teach them that people with orange fingernails have fingernails, just like everyone else in the world, and you will have not only educated them, but promoted kindness and acceptance all at once. ( )