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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Mafi, Tahereh. (2 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 A year after 9/11, Shirin is no longer surprised by the hatred she experiences as a Muslim teenager in the United States. Losing herself in the music she listens to, Shirin protects herself by not interacting with her classmates. When she starts a new school and meets Ocean James, a boy who actually wants to get to know her, her walls begin to come down and she starts to believe there is still good in the world. (Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Awards, 2020) Booktalk #2 Like every American, Shirin was absolutely horrified by what happened on September 11, 2001. But some of her middle school classmates didn’t believe that she was. In fact, they think she’s probably happy about it. Because she wears a hijab and her parents are from Iran. So naturally, they decide that she must be punished and only stop when the police are on the scene. She’s in a new town now and in high school but she’s not getting her hopes up about things being different. While her older brother seems to have no trouble fitting in wherever they go, her hijab just seems to make her a target. But when she finds her passion in being part of the school’s breakdancing team and a boy that she likes, she thinks that maybe this town, this school will be ok. While they may be able to handle a breakdancing girl in a hijab, the school community definitely can’t handle a Muslim girl dating their star basketball player and her nightmare starts all over again. Will this American girl in a hijab ever be able to fit in in America? (Prepared by: Marti Brown, Westwood High School, martbrown@richland2.org) (South Carolina Book Awards, 2020-2021)
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| SUBJECTS: Muslim teenagers -- Fiction. Prejudices -- Fiction. First loves -- Fiction. Love -- Fiction. |
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