She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments-even the physical violence-she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped.

You can find discussion questions for A Very Large Expanse of Sea here.Longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature!įrom the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary novel about fear, first love, and the devastating impact of prejudice. She discovers that in closing herself off, she became the very thing she most despises. As a result, she withdraws into a prickly shell, using her hijab and her headphones to block out the world around her.Īs she navigates her first love, Shirin slowly starts to open up and make friends.

She is bullied on a daily basis and there is no one she is close to who can relate. Two boys assaulted her in the days following the terrorist attack – and the police released them without repercussion. Shirin is miserable, isolated, and bitter because of her post 9/11 experiences.

The BookĪ Very Large Expanse of Sea puts us into the mind of a 16-year-old Muslim girl, a year after the 9/11 attacks. Post 9/11, many Muslims in the United States experienced harassment and persecution (see the articles below) because of the rampant fear and distrust. Reading is an excellent way to gain compassion and empathy because you’re walking someone else’s story. It’s important to me to model for and instill in my teens a compassion and an empathy for others, regardless of any perceived differences. Understanding racism as a system we’re born into rather than an attitude held by a “bad person” (re: someone who wants to harm others because of their race) opens us to recognizing problematic racial patterns in ourselves. The Contextįear and mistrust might be knee-jerk reactions, but how we act and think afterward is our choice. Tahera Mafi’s A Very Large Expanse of Sea is a beautiful book, perfect for springboarding into meaningful conversations with your teens.

A very large expanse of the sea