Watched

June 13, 2016
A Muslim teen adrift in his post-9/11 Queens neighborhood makes a dangerous bargain in a stirring novel about coming of age amid intensive police surveillance and racial profiling. After 11-year-old Naeem travels from Bangladesh to Jackson Heights to live with his father, stepmother, and half-brother, he begins a slow slide from treasured firstborn to charming but failing slacker. By senior year, Naeem mostly spends time cruising around with his older friend, Ibrahim, who is the reason Naeem gets caught with stolen merchandise after a mall trip. Two NYPD detectives offer Naeem a deal: he can become everything his community fears—a watcher, a rat—or his shoplifting will become more than a stupid mistake. Naeem immerses himself in the Muslim community, feeding what seems like innocuous information to the police, unsure whether he’s the hero or villain in his own story. Through Naeem’s perceptive, conflicted narration, Budhos (Tell Us We’re Home) captures the tug of youthful innocence leeching away as hard, unjust realities set in with a mix of apprehension and genuine emotion. Ages 12–up. Agency: Brandt & Hochman.

June 15, 2016
Naeem, a teenager living in an immigrant neighborhood in Queens, finds his grip on life slipping.With his performance in school deteriorating, he feels unable to deal with the disappointment of his hardworking and hopeful Bangladeshi parents--and then there are the inquisitive eyes and mouths of their neighbors. Hoping to avoid them, Naeem keeps himself constantly on the move. But he is always aware that he is always being watched, by cops and by cameras placed all around. He's taken small risks, but close calls have not been enough to deter him, until one day his past mistakes catch up with him and he has to make a choice between paying dearly or taking a deal the cops offer him: to become a watcher and help them spy on the people in his neighborhood. Having previously written about immigrant teens in Tell Us We're Home (2010) and Ask Me No Questions (2006), Budhos again tackles identity and belonging or lack thereof, as well as Islamophobia and growing up under surveillance. It's a slow story, appropriately filled with uncertainty. Action takes second place to a deeper message, and room is left for readers to speculate on the fates of certain characters. While the absence of certainty may frustrate some readers, it also speaks to the underlying takeaway: you can never be sure what others' intentions are, even if you have made it your job to study them. (Thriller. 12-18)

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Starred review from June 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-Naeem Rahman is a Bangladeshi immigrant and high school senior who lives in a Muslim neighborhood in Queens, where everyone is under surveillance because of fear of terrorist activity. His parents are struggling to make a living from their corner store, and they hope Naeem will be more successful than they are. However, he is more interested in street life and taking chances with the law than he is in studying. When his friend Ibrahim entices him into shoplifting and then abandons him to the cops, the protagonist is offered a deal: he can become an informant and spy on his Muslim neighbors, or he can face charges and most likely go to prison. He chooses the former. At first, this doesn't seem too bad. Naeem is making money, and he rationalizes that this is a way to do something good. He starts attending mosque and participating in a Muslim teen volunteer group, but when he doesn't find anything particularly alarming to report, the cops begin pressuring him to come up with better leads. Eventually, Naeem becomes involved in a scheme to entrap Ibrahim into incriminating activity, and he has to make some hard moral choices. This is a fast-moving, gripping tale that conveys Naeem's restlessness and the sense of paranoia that comes from being watched constantly. Budhos perfectly captures the gritty details of daily life in a Queens neighborhood, as well as the nuances of different immigrant groups. VERDICT Highly recommended because of its very timely subject matter; this would be a great choice for a book club or classroom discussion.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2016
Grades 6-9 Naeem Rahman can't stop moving. After emigrating from Bangladesh to New York at age 11, he, as a high-school senior, spends his days cutting class and moving through the streets of Queens, hoping to avoid the watchful eyes of his father, stepmother, and half brother; his hordes of nosy neighbors; and especially the police and cameras that cover his Muslim neighborhood. When his friend Ibrahim tricks him into shoplifting, two NYPD officers leave Naeem with a choice. Either go to jail or become exactly what he has always hateda spy, an informant, a watcherthereby betraying his family, friends, and community. Budhos, author of two other novels that focus on immigrant teens (Ask Me No Questions, 2006, and Tell Us We're Home, 2010), presents another effective coming-of-age novel, one that not only confronts without reservation the notion of Islamaphobia and issues of teenage identity but also tackles the grittier aspects of life in this post-9/11 era. What does it mean to belong to a family? a community? a country?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017
Muslim Bangladeshi immigrant Naeem has fallen in with a reckless high-school crowd. He lands in police custody and is presented with an unsavory choice: pay the price for his crimes and break his parents' hearts, or spy on his own neighbors and thus betray his community. Budhos thoughtfully explores the complex and sometimes conflicting intricacies of a bicultural identity in this slow-boil tale.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2016
As a Muslim immigrant in Queens (having arrived from Bangladesh at age eleven), Naeem has grown up under the watchful eyes of his father and stepmother: Do your bestDon't make trouble. Now a teenager, he has fallen in with a reckless high school crowd and has let his grades slip to the point of not graduating. Disaster finally strikes when Naeem lands in police custody and finds that he has been watched more closely and by more eyes than he realized. He is presented with an unsavory choice: pay the price for his crimes and break his parents' hearts, or spy on his own neighbors and thus betray his community. Budhos thoughtfully explores the complex and sometimes conflicting intricacies of a bicultural identity in this slow-boil tale. Naeem's first-person narrative, strained with uncertainty, ramps up the tension: whom can he really trust, and does he have the full picture, or just the parts others want him to see? The novel is split into four sections, each of which begins with a different police file. Budhos crafts a dissonance between these cold, detached reports and the protagonist's emotionally fraught voice, leaving readers as off-balance and uneasy as Naeem while they attempt to untangle, from a knot of ambiguity, the truth about other characters' motives. anastasia m. collins

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)