Hollow Fires

Jawad is the son of Iraqi refugees. In Iraq, his father was a professor and a translator for Coalition Forces and his mother was a nurse. Now they own a dry cleaners. He attended a public school where the teacher who accused him of bringing a bomb to class never took the time to learn how to pronounce his name correctly. Safiya and her friends Asma and Usman are all Muslim and attend DuSable Prep. Safiya is Indian American and a scholarship student, while Asma comes from a wealthy family. Usman and his family are from Afghanistan, where they belonged to an often-persecuted ethnic minority. Safiya describes DuSable Prep as one of those schools that "celebrate diversity on paper, not necessarily in the admissions policy." Less than 10 percent of her classmates are Black, indigenous, or students of color, even though the school was named after Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, a Black Haitian who was the first non-indigenous resident of Chicago.

Jawad describes being hit in the head, feeling something sticky and warm on his neck and having a cloth pressed down hard on his face. A White police officer points a gun and yells at an innocent Muslim teen until a Back woman officer intervenes. A girl fights off two boys trying to kidnap her. Someone paints a threat on the window of a store owned by Muslims. "Go Home F--king Terrorists 14/88." "14" is a reference to the number of words in a particular White supremacist slogan, and "88" symbolizes "Heil Hitler," as H is the eighth letter of alphabet.

Safiya's casual friendship with Richard, the White captain of the swimming and lacrosse teams, is beginning to develop into something more romantic. But nothing beyond a few kisses on the cheek.

In addition to a moderate amount of profanity ("f--k," "crap," a--hole," "bulls--t"), Muslims are routinely subjected to hate speech (for example, "The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.") and called terrorists, "Muslim scum," "rag heads," "camel jockey," and "rag head skittle."

Mention that a teen smells of stale cigarette smoke.

Parents need to know Samira Ahmed's Hollow Fires, is a gripping and timely thriller with a powerful message about the dangers of racism and hate speech. When 14-year-old Jawad Ali brings a homemade cosplay jet pack to school, his teacher assumes that because he's Muslim it must be a suicide vest. She calls the police and Jawad is arrested as a terrorist -- an arrest that will lead to his kidnapping and murder. Safiya Mirza is the editor of the school newspaper at Chicago's elite DuSable Prep, and she's determined to find Jawad's killer. A killer she's comes to believe is a fellow student and secret white supremacist. As for violence, Jawad's ghost describes of his kidnapping and murder but not in any graphic detail, and a girl fights off two boys attempting to kidnap her. There's some strong language ("f--k," "crap," a--hole," "bulls--t"), and Muslims are routinely subjected to hate speech and called terrorists, "Muslim scum," and "rag heads."