👍🤷‍♂️ Refugee (2017)

By Alan Gratz

4Rbooks                                           4/6                                          grades         6-12

Amazon                                           4.7/5                                       grade level 4-7

Goodreads                                      4.36/5          

Common Sense Media               5/5                                          ages 11+

338 pages

Synopsis

Josef is a 12-year-old boy in 1938 Germany.  Isabel lives in Cuba, 1994, and is 11 years old. Mahmoud is 12 and lives in 2015 Syria. Each child is living through dangerous times. Germany is being led by the Nazis who want to get rid of the Jews in their country. Cuba is suffering economic hardships and people are rioting in the streets. Syria is involved in a civil war and innocent people are dying.

All three children and their families will escape, but no one will find it easy. Josef and his family are put on a boat to America but will find the doors closed when they get there. Isabel, with her family and neighbors, will try to cross the ocean to America in a makeshift boat but will suffer through storms, the inability to land in Haiti, and a shark attack. Mahmoud and his family will attempt to travel to Germany by car, train, and boat with numerous challenges awaiting them.

Some will make it to their destination safely, but others won’t. Some will get the opportunity to start new lives, but others will return home. They all face obstacles including war, natural disasters, prejudice, and evil, hoping that their new lives will be worth the effort.  The book details the story of each child, bouncing back and forth between them, one chapter at a time.  There is a connecting thread to all three stories that is revealed at the end. Maps of the journeys are included as well as an afterward giving details about the different situations and timelines of history.

Parental Guidelines:   high

Josef:

His home is destroyed on Kristallnacht and his father taken to a concentration camp.

His father returns from the camp a broken man, fearful, scaring his children. Eventually he attempts to commit suicide by jumping into the ocean.

Nazi thugs on the ship ransack their cabin and intimidate them.

Eventually Josef, his mother, and his sister are captured by the Germans and his mother is given a “Sophie’s choice” decision.

We learn in the afterward the Josef and his mother die in concentration camps.

Isabel:

Her father as been arrested before and is involved in revolts against Cuba.

Many in Cuba are starving since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Her grandmother had drowned trying to make a similar trip years before.

Her family, and her best friends family, take to the sea in a small, makeshift boat.

There are mechanical problems, storms, and they are turned away from Haiti.

Her friend Ivan is bitten by a shark and bleeds to death.

Her grandfather allows himself to be captured by the coast guard to save the family and is returned to Cuba.

Mahmoud:

There is a civil war going in Syria and is destroying his hometown.  A missile hits his apartment building and his family decides to escape. Friends of Mahoud have been beaten.

On their way to Germany, they encounter a number of difficult situations: they have to sleep in abandoned buildings and refugee camps. They are financially taken advantage of on a regular basis. They are shot at and someone is killed right in front of them. They try to sail part of the way and the boat hits rock and everyone is tossed overboard. Mahmoud is with his mother and sister. Another boat comes by but it is full.  Mahmoud gets someone in the boat to take his baby sister and they never see her again. He comes across a dead body in the water. They are robbed at gunpoint and also imprisoned for a time.   

Recommendation

This is not a book for the faint of heart.  It was a tough read as each story encompasses everything that could possibly go wrong with these types of journeys. What the children saw and endured should never happen to anyone, but is all too common throughout history, and the world today.

It is hard for me to imagine this being a good book for elementary students.  Sensitive middle schoolers would also need support to read through these stories. Even though the children are pre-teens in the book, I think this is a better book for high school students and adults. People with more experience and a better understanding of the world. I gave it a thumbs up emoji because it is well written, historically accurate, and creative with the thread that ties the stories together.  But I also gave it a shoulder shrug emoji because I don’t think it’s going to be an easy read for its target audience.

The end of the author’s notes includes information about where to donate money for refugee relief efforts.