Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin

ILLEGAL by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin with illustrations by Giovanni Rigano is an extremely informative and moving graphic novel.  I am definitely recommending it to our Geography teachers, although it should have wide appeal to anyone interested in this crisis. This is a very quick but impactful read which will build empathy and prompt discussion. Following up with a role-playing and/or simulation involving refugees like the one from World Relief Seattle or using lesson plans from Teaching Tolerance would be very memorable.  The Refugee Project has a series of amazing interactive maps built on data from the UNHCR which could also be used. And, PBS POV in conjunction with its lesson plan for the documentary 4.1 Miles, suggests checking out The Refugee Center for volunteer opportunities. Our high school students have worked successfully with Chicago’s RefugeeOne. The list could go on and I hope that ILLEGAL’s publisher, Sourcebooks Landmark, will add more to the UK based groups that appear in the text.  Colfer, Donkin and Rigano’s graphic novel received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and VOYA. Perhaps the authors and illustrator will collaborate further on telling the story of life in the camps or as a resettled immigrant?  

The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar

THE MAP OF SALT AND STARS by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar has a beautiful cover and contains a rich blending of two stories.  One is set in the twelfth century and relates the adventures of Rawiya, a young girl who runs away from home and pretends to be a boy as she travels through the Middle East and Northern Africa with a famous medieval mapmaker. The other action concerns a preteen named Nour who is a present day refugee from Syria fleeing that war torn country with her family, covering much of the same geographical territory.  Joukhadar’s debut novel is extremely ambitious in that it relates two coming of age adventures, tackles contemporary issues and even explores the idea of synesthesia, or seeing and thinking in colors. 

Some favorite quotes include:

Every place you go becomes a part of you. But none more so than home.

… stories ease the pain of living, not dying. People always think dying is going to hurt. But it does not. It’s living that hurts us.

You are the stories you tell yourself.

A red hard knot glues itself to my ribs like indigestion, the tangled-up knot of all the things I’ve loved that will be buried one day, all the things I know I am bound to forget.

THE MAP OF SALT AND STARS by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar received starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus. I certainly appreciate the skill exhibited in playing these two stories off of each other and frankly, I liked Rawiya’s mythical tale and eagerly read those portions, but found it surprisingly difficult to develop a deep empathy for the contemporary characters, including young Nour. Coincidentally, I have just been talking with other teachers about looking for an updated version of books like Enrique’s Journey. Exposing our students to the plight of today’s refugees and the crises they face is critical; perhaps exploring those events separately would have resulted in a shorter novel and one that could have been used with classes? I have found suggestions to make for Senior classes like the essays in The Displaced or a more challenging novel like Go, Went, Gone, but welcome more ideas, especially for our younger students.  

More on Refugees - domestic and global issues

THE FAR AWAY BROTHERS by Lauren Markham is a narrative non-fiction work which tells the story of “Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life.” Twin seventeen year-old brothers, Ernesto and Raul Flores, flee dangerous gang threats in El Salvador and attempt to start a life in California. As the publisher says, they are “fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong.” After paying a coyote and travelling through the desert, they ultimately reach an older brother in San Jose, and then move to Oakland, where they enroll in high school and apply for eligibility for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.

Markham has spent over a decade working in refugee resettlement and immigrant education and she weaves numerous facts into the Flores brothers’ story. Many, particularly those related to violence and femicide in El Salvador, are shocking and difficult to read. As just one example, Amnesty International reported in 2010 that 6 out of 10 migrant woman and girls were sexually assaulted en route to the United States. Markham discusses potential policy shifts and the moral and pragmatic implications of the situation in her afterword which is accompanied by numerous sources and followed by a comprehensive index.

THE FAR AWAY BROTHERS received a starred review from Kirkus; this year we are planning to booktalk it as a possible text for interested students to read for Junior Theme.  I can see supplementing this title with excerpts from Tell Me How It Ends or perhaps contrasting it with a fictional work such as A Radius of Us or Lucky Boy or Behold the Dreamers.

GO, WENT, GONE by Jenny Erpenbeck is a fictional account focusing on the refugee crisis in Europe. Originally written in German, it is translated by Susan Bernofsky. The main character is Richard, a recently retired classics professor who is increasingly troubled by and drawn to the immigrants he meets in Berlin.  Richard learns of ten African refugees who are conducting a hunger strike before Berlin's Town Hall, eventually works to apply for asylum for them, and even invites one to his home to play piano.  

For me, this book was a fascinating look at another country as well as an exploration of a hotly debated social issue. I was surprised at how much seemingly tangential information I learned from reading GO, WENT, GONE; for example, did you know that there is more uranium in Niger than nearly anywhere else in the world?  Our global inter-connectedness is highlighted by books like this which seek to foster dialogue and understanding across cultures. I am grateful and proud that our local libraries have them available for patrons especially when just this week, the President of the United Nations decried the US government’s decision to pull out of yet another non-binding international agreement, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants which pledged to uphold the rights of refugees, help them resettle and ensure they have access to education and jobs. Keep reading and stay informed. Erpenbeck is an award-winning author and GO, WENT, GONE received a starred review from Kirkus.