Anne: Hello, Hena! Welcome back to MG Book Village! Your newest MG novel, Drawing Deena, will hit shelves next week, so let’s tell readers a bit about it. Would you start with a super-brief summary of the story?
Hena: Thanks for having me back! Drawing Deena follows Deena, a young artist who is trying to find her own style, her role in her family, and her place in the social media landscape, all while dealing with her attention-seeking cousin and confronting her undiagnosed anxiety.
Anne: Thank you. You show Deena feeling anxious, then having a panic attack and needing help from a counselor. I really like how you invite readers to see therapy as a good thing—a way to talk through issues and develop healthy coping skills. How autobiographical is Deena’s story? Have you struggled with anxiety, yourself, or is the story based on someone you know well?
Hena: I wanted to explore the aspects of discovering and learning to manage anxiety in adolescents, since it can be difficult to diagnose and easy to confuse with other physical ailments, like acid reflux or other gastrointestinal issues. The story is both based on personal experience and those of family members whose journey I’m intimately familiar with. Anxiety can be tricky and manifest in unexpected ways. I get stomach aches and insomnia, but have never had a full panic attack, thankfully. I’ve seen others deal with them, and they seem terribly frightening. But the parts about Deena cracking a tooth and needing a nightguard are based entirely on me, since that’s one of the ways my anxiety gets me!
Anne: I wear a nightguard, too! (And it’s surprisingly comfortable. Just saying.)
Hena: I also wanted to include the aspect of seeking counseling and getting outside support to help manage anxiety since a diagnosis can be hard to accept, especially among immigrant families who might not be as familiar with available services in the school setting, or who may fear stigma around mental health challenges generally. I’ve witnessed debates around seeking professional help for kids and heard some of the concerns that parents have about potential consequences. But I think it’s important to learn coping skills as early as possible.
Anne: Agreed. Drawing Deena deals with social media and learning to cope with that—the story is timely! But you don’t depict the Internet as all-bad all the time. Tell us about your process in deciding how to incorporate social media issues into the story.
Hena: I was honestly thinking about my own relationship with social media when writing the book. I struggle with it a lot, although I know it’s an important tool for advertising and sharing creative works. But how much of what we share is motivated by “likes”? And how authentic can we actually be? Does having a constant and immediate audience change the way we create art? I wanted Deena to wonder about and wrestle with these questions, especially as she observes those around her get sucked in by socials and obsessed with them.
Anne: Great questions!
Hena: I know younger kids who haven’t yet gotten into the world of social media often have a surprising amount of clarity about it. They may even make promises about how they will or won’t behave once they’re allowed to join the platforms. But that is often easier said than done, as we all know, since social media is such a powerful force. And Deena is grappling with the newness of the experience and all that it can entail, which is a lot!
Anne: Yes, it really is a lot, and it’s helpful for kids to encounter characters who are dealing with this stuff.
Now, let’s switch gears and talk about the art in the story: I loved your mention of working artists, such as Pakistani American visual artist Shahzia Sikander. You encourage readers to see creative expression as “speaking your truth” and inspiring change. The character named Salma says that her art “always focuses on a question” and “art gives us space to claim our narratives.” When you began writing this story, did you plan to include these insights about art, or did they emerge along the way?
Hena: I adore Salma as a character! But I can’t take credit for her vision. I interviewed a “real-life” (as Deena would say) Pakistani American artist named Sobia Ahmad while I was writing the book, and those insights are hers. I loved the way she framed the idea of art helping us to express and answer our own questions, which is what I realized writing is for me.
When I was younger, I thought I needed to have things figured out to create art, whether it was visual art or writing. Like many kids, I felt like I had to have the final product fully imagined before I started and that it needed to be perfect. I didn’t understand that the process of creating art can be about exploring unresolved feelings, connecting thoughts, or even expressing our confusion—and that it’s okay for it to be messy or evolving. Now I know that making and sharing art can be enormously cathartic and helpful to others who share in our journey.
Anne: Oh, yes, the messy process. So true. And while Deena is trying to process her anxiety-filled life, there’s a morning when she doesn’t feel well and her dad gives her a concoction that turns out to be Sprite, lemon juice, and salt. (I thought, Ha! Homemade Gatorade. Get some electrolytes into your system, Deena!) What is your family’s comfort food or drink when someone isn’t feeling well?
Hena: That was it! My mom would make us that very concoction. And if there was no soda around, she’d squeeze lemon juice into water instead. Another family staple was a homemade chicken broth, made with chicken bones, onions, garlic, cloves, cardamom, and peppercorns. My mom would strain it and give it to me in a mug to drink like medicine. The best part is that the Urdu word for it is “yukh-nee” which is how I felt about it as a kid: yuck! But now I love it.
Anne: That’s great. And speaking of Urdu words, you wove lots of Urdu into Deena’s story, and I loved how Urdu added depth to the characters and made them come alive. Your bio says you grew up in Maryland. How did you learn Urdu? How much was Urdu spoken in your house when you were growing up, and have you taught your own children Urdu?
Hena: My parents spoke Urdu (with some Panjabi mixed in) to us while I was growing up. I’ve been told that I was fluent in Urdu as a young child, which I don’t remember. But apparently, after I started school, I began speaking in English to my sister who is five years older than me. And after a while, when my parents spoke to us in Urdu, we both responded in English. It didn’t occur to my parents that we would eventually lose the ability to converse freely or that we’d hesitate to speak Urdu. When they did realize it, we were already too self-conscious to make the switch back. I still understand household Urdu very well, and I can get by and be understood, but I know I mess up grammar and my vocabulary is basic.
I tell kids all the time that it’s one of the biggest regrets of my life to have lost my “mother tongue,” and I feel like a failure since I can’t teach it to my children. They only know a few phrases. It came in handy as a secret language for my husband and me, but I would rather have preserved the language and given them that skill! And I always encourage kids to avoid making the same mistake as me and to speak a second language if they have one at home since it’s a gift.
Anne: A beautiful gift—yes. Thanks for sharing that.
Before we wrap up this interview, please tell us what you’re working on now. What do you have coming out next?
Hena: I’m editing my second graphic novel now and revising a picture book, which is my favorite part of writing. After Drawing Deena, I have an edited anthology of South Asian American short stories called The Door is Open (Little, Brown) and my debut graphic novel We Are Big Time (Knopf) both coming out later this year, in addition to a picture book called Behind My Doors (Lee&Low) and a co-authored middle grade, Best Wishes #4, with Sarah Mylnowksi. That makes five new books for me in 2024!
Anne: Five in the coming year! That’s awesome.
Let’s end with your social media links. Where can readers go to learn more about you?
Hena: You can learn a lot more about me through my website, www.henakhan.com, which has dedicated pages for educators and for kids, along with information about all of my books, speaking and visits, interviews like this one, articles, reading guides and more! I send out an occasional newsletter you can sign up for. And you can also find me on Instagram and Facebook @henakhanbooks although I’m not super active or consistent on social media.
Anne: Thank you so much, Hena, for joining us at MG Book Village today, and for writing such an engaging story!
Hena: Thank YOU so much, Anne, for taking the time to read my book and asking me such thoughtful questions!
Hena Khan (she/her/hers) is a Pakistani American writer and winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature. She is the author of the middle grade novels Amina’s Voice, Amina’s Song, More to the Story, Drawing Deena, and the Zara’s Rules series and picture books Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, Under My Hijab, and It’s Ramadan, Curious George, among others. Hena lives in her hometown of Rockville, Maryland, with her family. You can learn more about Hena and her books by visiting her website at HenaKhan.com or connecting with her @HenaKhanBooks.
Anne (A.B.) Westrick (she/her) is the author of the older-MG novel Brotherhood. You can learn more about Anne at the MG Book Village “About” page.
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