Full Title: Laughing all the way to the mosque: a memoir of sorts from the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie

Zarqa’s “memoir of sorts” is a comical, light hearted glimpse into what it means to embrace many identities. Zarqa is more than a TV show creator, she is a devout Muslim, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a feminist, a  comedian and a Canadian.

WIth honesty and candor, Zarqa shares her experiences as a young Muslim woman growing up in Canada. From her ‘arranged’ marriage – to her struggle for gender equality in the mosque – to the unique bathroom rituals of Muslims, Zarqa’s memoir is rich with spirit and humour! Her optimistic and joyous approach to life is both entertaining and inspiring.

Zarqa demonstrates how to balance conservatism with a free-thinking (albeit sometimes controversial) attitude to religious rituals and Muslim culture. Readers will learn much about the religion of Islam, including traditions such as hajj, the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, and Eid al-Fitr, the feast to mark the end of Ramadan. Above all, Zarqa’s book is about establishing one’s own unique sense of identity despite the pressures to conform that surround us.

Laughing all the way to the mosque is a celebration of life, love and happiness. Try it for yourself and borrow a copy from your local Vaughan Public Library today!

For true fans of baseball and all its lore, the names Ralph Branca and Bobby Thomson, “The shot heard ’round the world,” and the radio announcer yelling over and over, “The Giants win the pennant!” are as familiar to them as their own names.  What might not be so familiar is the real story behind that moment in baseball history.

The apparent backbone of this documentary is the writing of Branca’s 2011 autobiography, A Moment in Time, with ghost-writer David Ritz, and that story is very important.  But if that were the only story being told, it would have been rather dull.  There was a secret lurking underneath waiting to be revealed.  When it is revealed you’ll see that the New York Giants’ coming back from a seemingly impossible deficit in August to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1951 National League pennant was not nearly so miraculous as has commonly been portrayed.

Truth be told, the secret was actually revealed in Joshua Prager’s 2006 book, The Echoing Green, and the author is interviewed for this documentary.  The irony is that the man who was most wronged, Branca, didn’t want to talk to Prager about it while the man who did the wrong, Thomson, treated the book as a confessional.

A must see for all baseball fans.