Review: The Stories That Won’t Burn: A Narrative of Resistance

Censorship thrives on silence, but some stories are simply too loud to be extinguished. Samira Ahmed’s novel This Book Won’t Burn and the anthology Banned Together, edited by Ashley Hope Pérez, refuse that silence in ways that are both complementary and deeply powerful. Together, they offer a roadmap for understanding how reading itself has become an act of resistance. Check out our thoughts below on the intersection of both stories!

Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers' Rights

by Ashley Hope Pérez, Debbie Fong, Elana K. Arnold, Nikki Grimes, Ellen Hopkins, Kelly Jensen, Brendan Kiely, Maia Kobabe, Bill Konigsberg, Kyle Lukoff, MariNaomi, Trung Le Nguyen, Isabel Quintero, Traci Sorell, Robin Stevenson, Padma Venkatraman
Published by: Holiday House
on March 4, 2025
Bookshop, Audiobook Libro.FM
Goodreads

A dazzling YA anthology that spotlights the transformative power of books while equipping teens to fight for the freedom to read, featuring the voices of 15 diverse, award-winning authors and illustrators.
Books are disappearing from shelves across the country. What does this mean for authors, illustrators, and—most crucially—for young readers?
This bold collection of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, essays, and other genres explores book bans through various lenses, and empowers teens to fight back. From moving personal accounts to clever comebacks aimed at censorship, fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens.
Contributors include Elana K. Arnold, Nikki Grimes, Ellen Hopkins, Kelly Jensen, Brendan Kiely, Maia Kobabe, Bill Konigsberg, Kyle Lukoff, MariNaomi, Trung Lê Nguyen, Ashley Hope Pérez, Isabel Quintero, Traci Sorell, Robin Stevenson, and Padma Venkatraman; the collection is a star-studded must-read that packs strength and power into every last word.
Striking illustrations from Ignatz-nominated artist Debbie Fong pair perfectly with the searing, impactful narrative. Resources include tips from the Vandegrift Banned Book Club and other teen activists, as well as extensive recommended book lists, a How to Start Your Own Little Free Library flier, and more.

This Book Won't Burn

by Samira Ahmed
on May 7, 2024
Bookshop, Audiobook Libro.FM
Goodreads

From the New York Times bestselling author of Internment comes a timely and gripping social-suspense novel about book banning, activism, and standing up for what you believe.

After her dad abruptly abandons her family and her mom moves them a million miles from their Chicago home, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school, away from everything and everyone she knows and loves. Reeling from being uprooted and deserted, Noor is certain the key to survival is to keep her head down and make it to graduation. But things aren’t so simple. At school, Noor discovers hundreds of books have been labeled “obscene” or “pornographic” and are being removed from the library in accordance with a new school board policy. Even worse, virtually all the banned books are by queer and BIPOC authors. Noor can’t sit back and do nothing, because that goes against everything she believes in, but challenging the status quo just might put a target on her back. Can she effect change by speaking up? Or will small-town politics—and small-town love—be her downfall?

Review

In This Book Won’t Burn, Samira places us inside the escalating pressure cooker of a school community where book bans and misinformation collide. We follow a Muslim teenager navigating a landscape of censorship and targeted harassment as a single book becomes a flashpoint for fear. Samira captures a sharp, uncomfortable truth: censorship does not arrive quietly. It shows up through social media mobs and institutional cowardice. It feeds on the expectation that marginalized people should make themselves smaller to keep the peace. Through this story, it becomes unmistakably clear that book bans are never really about the pages themselves. They are about whose stories are allowed to exist in public and whose lived experiences are deemed too inconvenient to share.

While Samira’s novel shows the emotional fallout of censorship in real time, Banned Together widens the lens to show the structural reality behind it. Edited by Ashley Hope Pérez, this anthology gathers essays, memoirs, and poetry from writers whose work has been directly challenged. These contributors often write about race, queerness, disability, and history, the very topics most frequently targeted by modern bans. The collection makes it clear that today’s challenges are not isolated incidents. Instead, they are coordinated efforts to narrow the world available to young people, particularly those already pushed to the margins.

The power of reading these two works together lies in the throughline they share. While censorship relies on intimidation, resistance relies on connection. This connection extends far beyond the page and into the real world advocacy of both authors.

Samira Ahmed serves as a leader with Authors Against Book Bans, organizing writers to defend the rights of students across the country. Her work reflects the moral core of her fiction, which is that silence is not safety and appeasement is not protection. Similarly, Ashley Hope Pérez bridges the gap between storytelling and action through the Unite to Read Project. This initiative engages universities and the public in confronting bans through dialogue and scholarship. Banned Together is a natural extension of that commitment to collective responsibility.

Ultimately, these books remind us that reading is not a passive hobby. It is participatory and deeply political. For many young people, a book is the first place they learn that their own lives matter. These stories will not burn; they will not disappear quietly, and they will never stop finding readers who are willing to defend them.