{"pk":62281,"title":"Solidarity Across Shelves: Children's Literature, Archives, and the Hijabi Librarians' Collective","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>Written by the founders of the Hijabi Librarians collective, this article offers a critical reflection on the group’s bibliographic, pedagogical, and public-facing interventions, proposing a conceptual expansion of Middle East librarianship to include coalitional engagement with non-regionally defined librarian-activist networks. The Hijabi Librarians, a collective of Muslim women youth services librarians, operate at the intersection of library science, critical pedagogy, and public scholarship. Their work intervenes in cultural and archival spaces where SWANA, diasporic, and Muslim identities are frequently misrepresented or erased. Amid the intensifying crisis in the region and its impact on communities across the diaspora, the collective’s advocacy for nuanced #OwnVoices representation in children’s and young adult literature takes on renewed urgency. Their interventions address enduring representational gaps while affirming the political, educational, and ethical power of youth literature. The article foregrounds the imaginative and empathetic potential of youth literature to serve as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors, central metaphors in multicultural literacy, that enable readers to understand, connect with, and stand in solidarity with others. This literature is not only for children; it is for adults as well - creators, librarians, educators - who seek to preserve a sense of wonder, and resist the normalization of dehumanization. In a climate of escalating educational censorship that demands we relinquish imagination for political expedience, the defense of children's literature becomes a radical act: it resists the colonization of imagination and refuses to concede empathy, possibility, or humanity itself. The Hijabi Librarians’ model aligns with and expands MELA’s mission through anti-censorship work, public programming, evaluation toolkits, metadata ethics, and bibliographic equity. The article advances a coalition-oriented model of Middle East librarianship attuned to diasporic complexity, epistemic justice, and the ethical stewardship of children’s literature as a transformative cultural force for both young readers and adult practitioners.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[],"section":"Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/53j108xz","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Danielle","middle_name":"","last_name":"Haque","name_suffix":"","institution":"Minnesota State University, Mankato","department":"English"},{"first_name":"Ariana","middle_name":"Sani","last_name":"Hussain","name_suffix":"","institution":"","department":""},{"first_name":"Mahasin","middle_name":"","last_name":"Aleem","name_suffix":"","institution":"Contra Costa County Library","department":"Library Services Manager"}],"date_submitted":"2026-02-03T03:35:25.882000Z","date_accepted":"2026-02-09T19:31:28.243169Z","date_published":"2026-02-09T16:19:00Z","render_galley":{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/melanotes/article/62281/galley/48623/download/"},"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/melanotes/article/62281/galley/48623/download/"}]}