THIS BOOK WON'T BURN (audiobook) by Samira Ahmed
Published by Little, Brown Young Readers in 2024.
Read by Kauser Mohammed.
Duration: 10 hours, 34 minutes.
Unabridged.
Book summary
Noor Khan is a senior in high school and she is devastated. Her father walked out on her family and moved back to his native England. He gave no warning and the family is reeling.
Noor's mother decides that a change of location would be best. Noor, her little sister (a freshman), and her mom move from their diverse upper middle class Chicago neighborhood to a downstate Illinois small town so that her mom can work at a small college.
Noor hates it. She misses her friends and the vibrancy of Chicago. She also feels like an oddity because she is Indian and Muslim in a school that is very white and very Christian.
She determines to gut out this one last semester of high school and then head back to Chicago to go to college. She decides she doesn't need friends or even to enjoy this small town - she just needs to get in, get the diploma and then get out.
But, she finds friends - the only Muslim/Indian boy in the area and his best friend - an proudly out-of-the-closet feisty lesbian. Together, these three comprise the diversity of their high school. They hang out in the school library whenever possible.
The library seems like a refuge until Noor notices that the stacks are missing lots and lots of books. The local chapter of a Moms for Liberty-type group has demanded that dozens and dozens of books be removed due to content. Like most of the large scale book bans across the country, this book ban has focused on books with LGBTQ+ characters, books with black and brown authors, and books that focus on America's troubled racial history. The local school board President is using his support of the high school library's book ban as the springboard to a run for the state legislature.
Can Noor stick to her original plan and just be quiet and graduate? Or, does she speak up in defense of her ideals of free speech and the freedom to read?
Also, she is very much intrigued by the Indian/Muslim boy. But, she is also strangely attracted to a very nice white boy - he's an athlete, he's polite, and he thinks Noor is great - and his stepdad is the school board member that initiated the book ban...
My Review
The author, Samira Ahmed, has written several books that have been added to the seemingly never-ending book ban lists. She was inspired to write this book when a small town teacher spoke with her about her experience. The teacher was using one of Ahmed's books in her class when the book was banned. The teacher was caught in a bind - small town politics meant that her school administration would not support her and she feared for her job if she pushed to her hard. Her colleagues didn't fight for the books because they were about people who were different than those who lived in their town. They refused to fight for books written by and about people who were unlike themselves (NOTE: I am a public school teacher and I am so unbelievably disappointed that literature teachers would respond to a book challenge like that.)
The author changed that story a bit - instead of a teacher, she created a fiercely independent high school student with a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to the First Amendment.
I liked this story a lot. It drew me in - Noor and her friends are great characters. The love triangle aspect of the story works to make the consequences of Noor's actions even more powerful.
The reader was Kausar Mohammed and she did a fantastic job with a wide variety of voices and accents. Excellent work.
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: This Book Won't Burn by Samira Ahmed.
Noor Khan is a senior in high school and she is devastated. Her father walked out on her family and moved back to his native England. He gave no warning and the family is reeling.
Noor's mother decides that a change of location would be best. Noor, her little sister (a freshman), and her mom move from their diverse upper middle class Chicago neighborhood to a downstate Illinois small town so that her mom can work at a small college.
Noor hates it. She misses her friends and the vibrancy of Chicago. She also feels like an oddity because she is Indian and Muslim in a school that is very white and very Christian.
She determines to gut out this one last semester of high school and then head back to Chicago to go to college. She decides she doesn't need friends or even to enjoy this small town - she just needs to get in, get the diploma and then get out.
But, she finds friends - the only Muslim/Indian boy in the area and his best friend - an proudly out-of-the-closet feisty lesbian. Together, these three comprise the diversity of their high school. They hang out in the school library whenever possible.
The library seems like a refuge until Noor notices that the stacks are missing lots and lots of books. The local chapter of a Moms for Liberty-type group has demanded that dozens and dozens of books be removed due to content. Like most of the large scale book bans across the country, this book ban has focused on books with LGBTQ+ characters, books with black and brown authors, and books that focus on America's troubled racial history. The local school board President is using his support of the high school library's book ban as the springboard to a run for the state legislature.
Can Noor stick to her original plan and just be quiet and graduate? Or, does she speak up in defense of her ideals of free speech and the freedom to read?
Also, she is very much intrigued by the Indian/Muslim boy. But, she is also strangely attracted to a very nice white boy - he's an athlete, he's polite, and he thinks Noor is great - and his stepdad is the school board member that initiated the book ban...
My Review
 |
| The author, Samira Ahmed |
The author changed that story a bit - instead of a teacher, she created a fiercely independent high school student with a strong sense of right and wrong when it comes to the First Amendment.
I liked this story a lot. It drew me in - Noor and her friends are great characters. The love triangle aspect of the story works to make the consequences of Noor's actions even more powerful.
The reader was Kausar Mohammed and she did a fantastic job with a wide variety of voices and accents. Excellent work.
I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: This Book Won't Burn by Samira Ahmed.
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