Author Samira Ahmed’s latest young-adult novel, “This Book Won’t Burn,” is nothing if not timely. The book, which hit shelves in May, centers on Noor Khan, a high school senior who discovers that the library at her new school is being ravaged by book banners who have been slowly (but legally) swiping books right off the shelves — and most of the books are by writers of color or queer authors.
It’s a page torn right out of her own real-life experience. Three years ago, Ahmed had a conversation with an English teacher about her own frequently banned book, “Internment.”
“She taught in a small, rural, mostly white school district and wanted to bring ‘Internment’ into her lit circles in her high school classroom,” Ahmed told HuffPost. “Two other teachers strongly objected to the book being present in the school because there were no Muslim or South Asian students at their school — this was obviously a ridiculous reason, and one meant to cover their own biases.”
The teacher didn’t know what to do. “The teacher was a single parent, the primary wage earner for her family and was, frankly, scared to lose her job,” Ahmed said. “But she felt bad about it and asked me the question: How can I be brave? What a gut punch of a question for a teacher to ask when all she was trying to do was teach a book. That question — How can I be brave? — inspired ‘This Book Won’t Burn.’”
Like many authors, teachers and parents, Ahmed is grappling with the insidious creep of book bans nationwide.
“My novel was inspired by the incredible work teachers, librarians and kids are doing to push back against bans and to protect their freedom to read,” she said. “The banned book club from my novel was inspired by real banned-book clubs created by kids. The brave actions of the renegade librarian in the school in my novel was also inspired by the courage of real librarians and teachers who have fought for our freedom to read and have been fired.”
Attempts to ban books have risen significantly since 2020, according to the American Library Association, which tracks data on book censorship in the United States. In 2023, the American Library Association reported, there was a 65% increase in challenges to individual books, with 4,240 book titles targeted, and 1,247 demands to censor library materials and resources. Of these, 47% of the books featured characters who were queer or of color — a definitive pattern when it comes to book bans.
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