Blog / 2025 / This Book Won’t Burn

Samira Ahmed’s YA novel is about the book bans happening in schools and libraries across America. The story follows Noor Khan, a high school senior who becomes the target of violence by small town small-minded types after she refuses to let them get away with censorship.

Considering the subject, the novel is surprisingly easy to read—the writing is beautiful and the characters are sympathetic—but the book also acts as a primer on resisting the extremists who have all but taken over our government. In fact, the bit that resonated most with me was something that could only come from a novel, but that was thoroughly practical as well. It was the ability to be inside Noor’s head as she navigated her feelings of guilt when the people in her life suffer violence as well.

Because that’s the thing: when you stand up against fascists, they not only come after you personally, but they also attack your loved ones if possible.

It’s heinous, but it’s one of the main powers of the Christian Nationalists and white supremacists who’ve taken over: they aren’t confined by basic rules of civility in their quest to make everyone think exactly like they do. In fact, fascists have a knack for making their cruelty seem like a force of nature, avoidable only if you don’t stand up to them. In that way, they nullify their own responsibility, turning to the defense that every dysregulated toddler finds most compelling: “you made me do it.”

The true horror of living among people who believe that a plurality of opinions is not okay is that their violence is an indication that you have power. Noor comes to understand this, and, through her, Ahmed reminded me that we all need to accept that we have power if we are to defy the oligarchs and their apologists.

I’m queer and I make books about queerness for kids. Sometimes it’s obvious—like with Crime Against Nature which is a science picture book that’s all about how animals don’t follow outdated human ideas about gender and sex—and sometimes it’s less so.

In 2023 and 2024, I spent way too much time worrying about being labeled a “groomer” by Christian Nationalists, because the project I was working on, a mental health workbook for teens and a matching high school lesson plan, alludes here and there to queerness while also referring to me as “they” in the bio.

I knew I couldn’t let the fascists pre-silence me by curbing my own free speech out of fear of potential retribution. I knew that would be worse than when I allowed lies about me that Newsweek published without question to shape my artistic trajectory for a couple of years. Still, I struggled to find my courage.

This is what the fascists ultimately want. When their violence feels unavoidable, people end up complying in advance. You may already be doing so, keeping your mouth shut when politics comes up in case someone in the conversation might one day turn out to be an informant for Trump’s Revenge Agenda. Then again, the Criminal-in-Chief might never need informants if the richest man in the world gets his way and all our private information—records which have been carefully siloed in different government databases for decades—is brought together in one place, allowing the administration to target anyone who criticizes it with deadly accuracy.

Please read This Book Won’t Burn. Please do everything you can to keep the spark of your courage alive.