While the Department of Education under the Trump administration claims book bans are a “hoax,” this does not erase the experience of authors like Samira Ahmed, who have been dealing with and fighting book bans for years.
Ahmed is the bestselling author of several young adult novels, including Internment, Hollow Fires, and This Book Won’t Burn. Through her writing career, she has worked to remedy an issue she noticed in childhood: a lack of books featuring South Asian and Muslim representation. In addition to allowing children to see themselves reflected in literature, her books tackle very relevant themes, including racism, Islamaphobia, and police brutality. Unfortunately, her books have been the target of the growing conservative book ban movement. While these book banners claim to be banning books that are “pornographic,” some of Ahmed’s books have been banned for no reason other than featuring a Muslim American protagonist. Many have also been “soft-banned” through unofficial processes that are harder to track or combat.
Recently, Ahmed spoke with The Mary Sue about her experiences with book banning. Not only do her experiences prove book bans are real, but her fight against them reminds Americans, including students, of their rights and how they can fight censorship, too.
The side of book banning America doesn’t see
Ahmed has been facing book challenges for three and a half years. Several of her books, including Internment, have been what she calls “soft-banned.” These are bans/challenges that don’t appear on the news or make it to the index of banned books. Soft bans arise when teachers or librarians self-censor or when officials are too afraid to escalate a complaint about book banning. She first learned of her books being banned when a teacher spoke to her at a conference. The teacher wanted to include Internment in her literary circles, which Ahmed explained “are almost like a sort of book club,” where the teacher breaks students up into groups and gives them a list of books to choose from. However, two teachers objected to Internment being listed as one of the choices, and their reason was quite shocking. Ahmed explained:
Their first response to her was, ‘There are no Muslim students and South Asian students at our school, so we don’t think this book should be here.’ This is not the first time I’ve ever heard something like that, and my response to being told that is always, well, you know, you probably have Lord of the Rings in your school library, and you don’t teach hobbits.
The teacher ultimately felt too afraid to elevate the complaint. However, she asked Ahmed, “My question to you, Samira, is how can I be brave?” Ahmed was gutted by the question and shocked that the teacher faced these difficulties merely for wanting Internment “just on a list of books students could choose from to possibly read.” Several months later, Ahmed heard a similar story from another teacher. The teacher put in a purchase order for several books, including Internment. When she received the order and noticed Internment was the only book missing from it, she questioned the person who placed the order. Ahmed emphasized, “This is a staff member, not a teacher, not a superintendent, not a school board member.” The staff member told the teacher, “Well, I just didn’t think we should have that book at our school.” When the teacher continued asking why they wouldn’t order Internment, the staff member finally said, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just prejudiced.”
In this case, the teacher eventually wore the staff member down and got the book, but only after months of her students going without it. This instance wasn’t officially reported due to the teacher’s fears of escalating the issue. Ahmed explained, “I speak at a lot of teacher conferences and librarian conferences, and I’ve heard so many instances of this kind of soft-banning or self-censorship, where teachers and librarians are simply afraid that they’re alone and not sure what to do in their school districts or libraries when they start getting this friction.”
However, she has also faced formal bans. Two of her books were challenged in a Texas school district for merely having Muslim-American characters. Ahmed stated, “For both of these books — Mad, Bad, & Dangerous To Know and Love, Hate, & Other Filters — both were challenged for having ‘other religious content.’ This also completely gobsmacked me because, number one, just using the word ‘other’ presumes that there’s only one standard that’s allowed. What’s more, neither of these books are nonfiction books about how to be a certain religion. It’s just that the characters in those books identify in some way by their faith.” Mad, Bad, & Dangerous To Know was also perplexingly challenged for “sexual content.” Ahmed clarified, “There’s zero sex in the book. There is kissing between fully clothed teenagers, rather chaste kissing, I would say … I can’t go into the mind of somebody who wants to ban books, but presumably, they objected to these two teens kissing.”
Another part of book-banning that citizens don’t always see is how banners treat these authors. These writers have their reputations attacked and even fear for their safety. All because they tried to write books for children. Ahmed explained, “There are so many authors who have been doxxed and called horrible names. Authors who receive a barrage of anonymous emails or DMs calling them pedophiles and terrible, terrible names. It’s just horrifying that this happens. This is not the country we’re supposed to be living in, but here we are.”
Samira Ahmed’s reacts to the DOE’s claims that book bans are a hoax
Given her experiences with book bans, I asked Ahmed about her reaction to the DOE’s recent press release claiming book bans were a hoax. She stated, “My first thought was, ‘Wow, this could easily be a headline in The Onion.’ Because to call it a hoax is absurd. We have over 10,000 instances that we can point to show that it is absolutely not a hoax.” Ahmed went on to pick apart the arguments for book banning, including the claim that it protects kids. She stated, “These folks who want to point to parent rights or protecting kids as their cause are really infuriating in so many ways because, if they really wanted to protect kids, they could ban guns.” Meanwhile, she also explained how book bans are unnecessary because librarians already know what books are age-appropriate. Ahmed explained:
You hear of so many people going to school boards and objecting to these books and saying things like, ‘Well, this book should not be put in the hands of kindergarteners because there’s sex in there.’ I guarantee you that there’s no elementary school or kindergarten library that has those YA novels in there. They’re not there because they’re not the books that a librarian would be purchasing. Moreover, a lot of these folks are calling our work ‘pornographic’ or ‘obscene,’ and there are no books in school libraries in the United States that meet the SCOTUS standard, the Miller test, of obscenity.
Ahmed concluded, “When you have the DOE trying to cut off the curiosity of children and saying, ‘We don’t think kids should have access to information.’ I mean, that’s a pretty awful day in America.” Since the DOE’s press release wrongfully claims books are being pulled from schools because they’re “pornographic,” I asked Ahmed what she thought the real reason for the bans is. While she, understandably, doesn’t want to speak for book banners, she shared what she thought of them and their bans:
I think that so many books are being targeted based on discriminatory reasons. I find book banners to be deeply uncurious people who, for the most part, are attacking queer, trans, Black, Brown, and disabled authors. They’re attacking books that discuss the facts of our history or that seem to put America in anything but the most perfect light … books that have any content about assault are also being attacked. Stories and books are places where young people can feel seen, where they can find a piece of themselves, where they might find the courage to share some terrible thing that has happened to them with a trusted adult, where they can see that they’re not alone.
How to combat book bans
Between soft-banning, self-censorship, and the Trump administration claiming book bans are hoaxes, it’s a deeply troubling time for readers and writers. However, Ahmed advised readers who fear a potential surge in censorship, “I want folks to know that our situation is not hopeless, and they are not helpless. Most of my books have a similar theme, which is that we should find ways to use our power and privilege for a purpose. In our communities, that means showing up to your school board meetings and making sure you vote for your school board members.”
She also wrote her book, This Book Won’t Burn, for young readers so they would know their rights, telling them, “I want them to know that even though most of them can’t vote, they still should have a say in our democracy. They still have the right to go to their school board meetings and their library board meetings. They have the right to protest. Their constitutional rights are not shed at the school doors.” She encouraged Americans to register to vote, speak at school board meetings, call legislative offices, support banned authors, and participate in the fight. Ahmed also urged people to get creative, pointing out how, in This Book Won’t Burn, the characters started a “banned camp” to get together off school property and read banned books.
For authors, she encouraged them to join Authors Against Book Bans, stating, “We are like the author army. We’re going where we’re needed. We will not be silenced. Art is important. Books are important, perhaps now more than ever. It’s a very unsettling time, and a lot of authors feel unsafe, and that’s why it’s important for us to band together. Collectively, we’re stronger. We’re better together. We can support one another.”
Ahmed’s experiences remind us of the reality of book banning and that it’s not even remotely similar to what conservatives want you to believe it is. Her experience and fight should inspire everyone to get active, exercise their rights, and work tirelessly to expose and end the unconstitutional book banning spreading across the U.S.
Published: Feb 10, 2025 05:22 pm