There are not many people who would tell you that your responsibilities as parents begin when you have become a grandpa and your grown up children have settled away from you either in the same city or in a distant land.
It is at this stage that you become companion and proselytiser of your children and grandchildren wherever they live.
Once the formal education and training in manners, morality and religious practices comes to an end and some lessons in reasoning begin, it marks the onset of the age of maturity. Those children who are permitted reasoning by their parents from early ages generally continue to be better performer throughout their academic career and subsequently excel in their chosen professions. They have better comprehension of their subjects, pleasing temperament and highly developed sense of reasoning which is the most effective tool needed for decision making. Activities of children at this stage of life, early period of learning, should not be ignored as age specific but should be treated as need specific. They should be provided opportunities to begin exploring the universe around them.
Shamshad A. Usmani, a grandpa first and a writer later, has realised his responsibilities toward children. To sharpen their skills of reasoning before they are grown up enough to spare time for such discussions he has written a book "The Floating Universe". It has four true stories about the sky, the moon and the silky way, reasons for sunrise and sunset and finally about the planet earth. How these object functions and how God has assigned them a duty to perform with complete obedience to the principles of discipline laid down for them is penned in simple and convincing manner.
The writer has explained functions of heavenly bodies with the help of scientific comments and the elucidation contained in the Holy Qura'n and the Holy Bible. The purpose is simply to tell children that what is scientifically true is divinely true as well or vice versa.
All the stories are interesting and absorbing for children as well for grown up readers. These are written in simple language. Dialogue format has been chosen to tell these stories. This has made reading further interesting as the dialogues surreptitiously drag the reader as well the listener to a stage where conclusions are drawn. All this happens without straining readers' nerves.
Though the tradition of reading stories to children when they are in bed has slowly disappeared, but still there are some families who stick to this practice.
There is need to revive this tradition on a wider scale. Bedtime story reading still has its charm. It has a number of influencing factors but above all it creates a lasting bondage between children and their parents.
The warmth of the body gives additional strength to parent-children relation. Stories in 'The Floating Universe' are interesting and absorbing. These may be classified as bedtime stories.
The Floating Universe is one of the books from among the series of Shamshad A. Usmani's Books of Knowledge to his grand children. "My grandchildren have inspired me to address the young generation all over the world, on subjects of mutual harmony between discoveries of universe by natural sciences and revelation in Qura'n and Bible.'
His aim is to inspire a unified vision of the universe and its creator in the young generation so that they seek areas of greater harmony later in life.
At the end of the book there is glossary which has added to its value. Quality of printing and paper used is good.
Illustrations by Shahzana Wasim tell half the story before one begins to read it.
The book is valuable for three reasons: it is an ideal birthday gift for children, its contents whet power of reasoning and rationalisation and conjoin scientific knowledge and contents of the Qura'n and the Bible.
This book will be a valuable addition in your children's library.