Samira Ahmed's THIS BOOK WON'T BURN - Why Book Bans Deserve Our Attention
- unabridgedpod
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@ashley_dicksonellison)
"Reading is dangerous because it shows us the truth. Words give us power; that’s why some adults want to silence us."
In this beautifully written and critically important young adult book, This Book Won't Burn, Samira Ahmed shows a vivid depiction of exactly what is happening in some places around America when it comes to censorship of books within our schools.
We meet Noor, a senior in her final quarter of high school and a recent transplant to a small town in Illinois. Noor's father, who had been a loving and caring part of their family as far as she knew, abruptly left their family one day and completely uprooted their lives. In an attempt to deal with the aftermath, Noor's mom moved her and her ninth grade sister, Amal, from their Chicago home to escape some of the scrutiny and to provide them with a fresh start. But Noor quickly discovers a new kind of scrutiny in their new school where she discovers that she stands out because of her Desi heritage, her brown skin, her Muslim faith, and her progressive views.
Despite the challenges, Noor quickly makes a couple of amazing friends, Fais and Juniper, and also finds herself getting to know a senior, Andrew, who seems quite intrigued by her. She immediately finds the library as a safe haven and gets to know Ms. Clayton, an amazing supporter and advocate who welcomes students and encourages their reading. But Noor also learns about the way that books are getting pulled off of the school library shelves. She discovers that most of the books getting removed are by authors of color and queer authors and center stories of BIPOC and queer characters.
Thanks to a "book fairy" sharing powerful, but banned, books with her in her locker, Noor starts reading banned books aloud. She and her friends eventually form the Bulldog Banned Camp, and the school administration and school board (led by none other than Andrew's stepdad) start to fight back against this activism.
Parts of this book are coming straight out of today's headlines and highlight how censorship works, what the arguments attempting to protect it are, and the damage it can cause. As Noor says at the school board meeting where the students speak out against the bans, "I guess what I'm saying is that no one who's banned books has ever, ever turned out to be one of the good guys."
Despite the heavy topic and the heartbreak Noor experiences on and off throughout the novel, this is also a very hopeful book that highlights the difference activists can make and the way that standing up for what is right can and does make a difference. I loved the nuances within the characters and the way Ahmed showed each character making complex, sometimes contradictory choices. The events in the novel show the stakes of these bans and why they matter. Ahmed also portrays how important it is to push against these bans and how what we read, and have access to read, shapes what we think and understand about ourselves and our world.
"Book banning has long been used to silence those who want to speak out, those who are unwilling to be gaslit into thinking they're living in the best of all possible worlds."
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