‘I’m just - I’m sick and tired of trying to explain to the world why racism is bad, okay? Why is that my job?’” I’m tired of begging everyone to understand that people of color aren’t all the same, that we don’t all believe the same things or feel the same things or experience the world the same way.’ I shook my head, hard. I’m tired of trying to explain why I don’t deserve to be treated like a piece of shit all the time.

I’ve been trying to educate people for years and it’s exhausting. After one of her teachers subjected her to an incredibly insensitive episode in class, she wanted to drop his class, and he tried to convince her to stay. But Shirin is stronger than she realizes, and remarkably mature and self-confident, and that also helps. Shirin won’t stop wearing the hijab though she likes, and even needs, the power she feels it gives her over her own body.

I was still so easily, pathetically, punctured.” She thinks she is weak though because she does get hurt: “I still cared too much. She also works out her frustrations physically by practicing break-dancing after school with her brother and some of his friends. Mostly she tries to tune it all out (literally) by listening to music all day through headphones that are invisible because of her hijab.

Since the attack on 9/11, however, it has gotten much worse. Shirin has a virtual spike-covered wall around her to protect her from the slings and arrows of degrading, ill-informed, and cruel insults from fellow high schoolers and even high school teachers. Navid has an easier time adjusting than Shirin he is a good-looking male who can protect himself, and perhaps most importantly, he doesn’t wear a head scarf, as does Shirin. Shirin and her older brother Navid have moved a lot, because her parents are always trying to improve their lives. This short young adult novel about Shirin, a 16-year-old Muslim girl in 2002, born in America to Iranian parents, has won numerous awards, including a nomination for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2018.

A very large expanse of sea ocean