Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero

Saadia Faruqi's Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero is a story for 9 year olds about a robot-mad boy starting middle school in a small Texas town, twenty years after 9/11.

What happens

Yusuf has waited for this year all his life. He's got his first locker, his own school email and his heart set on the Texas Robotics Competition. He and his best friend Danial have been building LEGO robots since third grade.

Then he opens his locker on the first morning and finds a note. "You suck." The next day there's another one. "Go home."

He tells himself it's a mistake. But the town is putting up "Never Forget" banners for the anniversary, and the grown-ups around him keep going quiet. Then his uncle gives him the journal he kept at Yusuf's age, back in 2001, when he was a Pakistani American sixth grader too.

So you get two stories side by side. Yusuf's, and his uncle's journal from the days before the attacks, when his biggest worries were locker posters and keeping his straight As.

For most of the way it's a warm, funny read. Yusuf's family is lovely. His little sister Aleena wants a coded unicorn that glows (and gets one, rainbow farts and all). His amma runs Sunday school with tiny chocolate bars as prizes. His abba polishes the bravery plaque in his dollar store twice a day.

There's real tension underneath, though. The Muslim families in Frey are building a new mosque together, by hand, at weekends. Not everyone in town is pleased about it.

A heads-up for parents. The notes in Yusuf's locker are hateful, and the book talks honestly about 9/11 and about prejudice against Muslims. His dad also stopped an armed robber at the store years ago, and Yusuf has watched the security footage many times. None of it is graphic, but it may bring up some big questions. Which is probably the point!

If your reader loves coding, or has ever felt they had to prove they belonged, they'll find a real friend in Yusuf.

What to read next

For another Pakistani American kid from Texas with a journal and a lot on her mind, try A Thousand Questions. Mimi is whisked from Houston to spend a scorching summer in Karachi with grandparents she's never met.