Finding Her Voice (37)
AMINA'S VOICE by Hena Kahn
Middle school begins and Amina finds herself competing for her best friend's attention, struggling with her family dynamics, and fighting her nerves about speaking or singing in public, against the backdrop of her Pakistani-American Muslim upbringing. The friend problems feel somewhat typical in this middle grade novel, where one friend is suddenly worried about being "cool" instead of just being a good friend, but the multicultural aspects are fluid, and the story rings true. The hate crime at the end is a bit unresolved, yet it is a nice contrast to the way other parts of the story wrap up happily. An on-point contemporary read. (Salaam Reads, 2017)
Middle school begins and Amina finds herself competing for her best friend's attention, struggling with her family dynamics, and fighting her nerves about speaking or singing in public, against the backdrop of her Pakistani-American Muslim upbringing. The friend problems feel somewhat typical in this middle grade novel, where one friend is suddenly worried about being "cool" instead of just being a good friend, but the multicultural aspects are fluid, and the story rings true. The hate crime at the end is a bit unresolved, yet it is a nice contrast to the way other parts of the story wrap up happily. An on-point contemporary read. (Salaam Reads, 2017)