Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet

“This made me feel like there were snakes in my tummy and some of them were sneaking up and squeezing my heart.”

Omar uses a simile, a comparison of something to something else using “like” or “as.” In this case, he compares his feelings of dread and fear about starting a new school to the sensation of being squeezed by snakes. Omar often uses animal imagery, such as likening Daniel to large, threatening animals.

“And she put her nose higher in the air as if she was smelling something there that she didn’t like.”

In the novel, one’s physical characteristics often reveal their internal state. Omar riffs on the common idiom “nose in the air” to describe Mrs. Rogers when she peeks over the fence at them the first time, when she haughtily acts like she is better than them. The implication is that Omar’s family is inferior, “bad-smelling,” or repugnant to Mrs. Rogers. Omar’s comment foreshadows Mrs. Rogers’s future unfriendliness and her anti-Muslim prejudice.

“Now, Esa is annoying sometimes, but he IS my little brother and I worry about him, so I quickly sneaked a look behind us.”

Although Omar describes Esa as the sticky, messy, “little human thing we call a brother,” Omar loves him (52). Omar checks on Esa when he goes to sit by himself at the mosque—and causes trouble. Omar’s comment exemplifies how deeply his family cares about each other.