However, as a mother, Hena yearned to see books that represented kids like her children and decided to write them. She went on to write several pick-your-path format books including adventures to Mars and the Amazon rainforest. Hena began writing for children with Scholastic book clubs, publishing books for popular series about spies, space and more. Hena’s acclaimed picture books include Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, Under My Hijab, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, Night of the Moon, and It’s Ramadan, Curious George. Hena wrote the popular Zayd Saleem Chasing the Dream series, and More to the Story, a novel inspired by her all-time favorite book, Little Women. The sequel, Amina’s Song, won the 2021 Asian/Pacific Award for Children’s Literature. Her middle grade novel Amina’s Voice launched Simon & Schuster’s groundbreaking Salaam Reads imprint and was named a Best Book of 2017 by the Washington Post, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and others. (Mar.Hena Khan is an award-winning author of picture books and middle grade fiction. Ing throughout, with her close familial relationships and self-proclaimed “identity crisis” as part of both cultures enabling frank discussions, and well-rounded supporting characters lending layers to the narrative.

Though the prose style can feel somewhat simplistic at times, Amina remains engag. With his help, she aims to showcase her love of Pakistan and challenge her American classmates’ assumptions. Her decision to dress up as Malala Yousafzai for a school project provokes negative commentary on Pakistan, even though “girls suffer from injustice everywhere in the world.” Meanwhile, the presence of Nico, a new French Egyptian classmate, sees Amina navigating the viability of platonic male-female friendships, as he partners with Amina to complete a songwriting project.

To her disappointment, however, her classmates appear uninterested in hearing more about her trip and the people and vibrant places she’s come to love, even while feeling excluded from aspects of Pakistani culture. Upon her return to Wisconsin, Amina begins seventh grade smoothly, without the friendship conflicts that plagued her the previous year. In this sequel to Amina’s Voice, Khan returns to the world of Pakistani American teenager Amina Khokar, whose monthlong trip to Lahore is coming to an end as the book opens.

Amina's Voice by Hena Khan