Book Review: Refugee*,by Alan Gratz, published July 25, 2017, 344 pages (Kindle edition), Lexile 800, recommended for ages 10 and up, or grades 4-7. Please note: this book is in the Pageturner library, but only for one middle grade class. It will require student requests to be delivered to other classes.
In his afterword, Gratz writes:
“Beverly Crawford, a professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, has written that refugees live three lives. The first is spent escaping the horrors of whatever has driven them from their homes—like the persecution and murder of Jews in Josef’s Nazi Germany, the starvation and civil rights abuses of Isabel’s Cuba, or the devastating civil war of Mahmoud’s Syria. Those who are lucky enough to escape their homes begin a second, equally dangerous life in their search for refuge, trying to survive ocean crossings and border patrols and criminals looking to profit off them. Most migrants don’t end up in refugee camps, and their days are spent seeking shelter, food, water, and warmth. But even in the camps, efugees are exposed to illness and disease, and often have to exist on less than fifty cents a day. If refugees manage to escape their home and then survive the journey to freedom, they begin a third life, starting over in a new country, one where they often do not speak the language or practice the same religion as their hosts. Professional degrees granted in one country are often not honored in another, so refugees who were doctors or lawyers or teachers where they came from become store clerks and taxi drivers and janitors. Families that once had comfortable homes and cars and money set aside for college and retirement have to start all over, living with other refugees in government housing or with host families in foreign cities as they rebuild their lives.”
When I first read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba—my review of it is elsewhere here in “News”—I was stunned to learn he spent 11 years in refugee camps containing up to 70,000 people each, in two different countries, where refugees were routinely treated worse than cattle and then frightened away by gunfire to be rid of them. Kamkwamba walked hundreds of miles only to grow from childhood into an adult—in what were essentially open air prisons.
This book also exposes the horrors facing children as well as adults who are forced to leave their homes, their countries, their belongings, even their religions—to escape. To survive. Gratz sieves through recent history to highlight some true occurrences, such as the dilemma faced by the 937 people aboard the German liner St. Louis:
“In May 1939, the German liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg, Germany, to Havana, Cuba. The 937 passengers were almost all Jewish refugees. Cuba's government refused to allow the ship to land. The United States and Canada were unwilling to admit the passengers. The St. Louis passengers were finally permitted to land in western European countries rather than return to Nazi Germany. Ultimately, 254 St. Louis passengers were killed in the Holocaust.” (1)
The first story concerns a fictional Jewish boy named Josef, his mother and father and his younger sister, Ruth. Their father, an attorney, was seized from home one night by Nazis, for practicing law now forbidden to Jews. He spends six months in Dachau and is realized on condition he and his family leave Germany within 14 days. Although they are able to pay for passage to Cuba on the St. Louis, Josef’s dad is utterly broken. He is paranoid, certain they will be murdered in their ship’s cabin. Indeed, a historical Nazi spy is aboard, who orchestrates the destruction of all their belongings in that cabin. As they anchor off Cuba’s shore waiting to be allowed to debark, the father dives into the sea to drown rather than be murdered, but a brave Cuban police officer rescues him. He is taken onshore for emergency medical help—and the family never sees him again. Josef’s dad is an amalgam of two different men who suffered similarly, one of whom successfully committed suicide.
Josef and his mom will be among the 254 who die in the concentration camps. Gratz takes the theme of the film, Sophie’s Choice, here: when the Nazis have invaded Germany and they are exposed, Josef’s mom offers up her diamond earrings in hope that’s enough to buy their freedom. Instead, she is offered the Hobson’s choice, Sophie’s choice, of choosing which of her two children will survive:
“The Nazi didn’t care how much money they had, how many jewels. It wasn’t about that. He was playing with them. This was another game, like a cat playing with a mouse before he ate it. I think there is only enough here to buy freedom for one of your children. One of Rachel Landau’s children would go free, and one of her children would go into the camps. The Nazi soldier smiled at Josef’s mother. “You choose.”
Josef takes charge and tells them to take him. They take his mother as well and leave 6-year old Ruthie alone. She will be rescued by a loving French woman who raises her as family.
When he first decides to hide his faith, Josef thinks:
“Whether you were visible or invisible, it was all about how other people reacted to you. Good and bad things happened either way. If you were invisible, the bad people couldn’t hurt you, that was true. But the good people couldn’t help you, either. If you stayed invisible here, did everything you were supposed to and never made waves, you would disappear from the eyes and minds of all the good people out there who could help you get your life back…it was better to be visible. To stand up. To stand out.” He is only 13 when he courageously decides to have his baby sister spared at the probable expense of his own life.
The next story concerns Isabel Fernandez and her family , escaping Castro’s Cuba in 1994 after he decides people are free to leave—an invitation that can just as quickly be revoked. They are only able to board a makeshift boat nailed together from metal Castro posters after Isabella gives away her precious trumpet in exchange for two containers of gas to power the boat the short distance to Miami. The boat was built by her best friend Ivan and his dad, for the four members of their family and Amara, the older son’s girlfriend. With Isabella’s family, there are 9. Her mom is a week away from having another baby, and the boat leaks. They stuff some bread in the hole and start out, already arguing and challenging one another. At one point they decide that if one or two take turns out of the boat and in the warm waters, the boat will leak less. Then Ivan is attacked by a shark and dies. He remains in the boat awhile, until they realize they must give his body to the sea. Isabella and Ivan are—were—10 years old. Ivan’s brother is so enraged he shoots the shark, which only invites a cluster of sharks in the reddening water.:
““Another fin appeared, and another, and soon the nameless little boat was surrounded. They were trapped in their own sinking prison.”
None of them know how to navigate by the stars; a storm blows them off-course and they first end up not in Miami but in the Bahamas, where they are not permitted to land, although generous people offer them some supplies and food. ““They were farther away from Florida and freedom than they had ever been before.”
They almost collide with a huge tanker, and then are almost swamped in its wake. Finally they see the bright lights of Miami—only now, they are being chased by the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. policy is “wet foot, dry foot,” meaning that while in the water they are illegal and must be denied entry. Once on land, however, they are free. This policy ended with Obama, who made things harder for immigrating Cubans. (2) (This was such a cruelly arbitrary way to deal with immigration, but not nearly as bad as Trump’s separating children from parents without maintaining any records.) (3).
The Coast Guard issues an ultimatum: “’Halt! […] You are in violation of US waters. Remain where you are and prepare to be boarded!’ ” Isabella’s grandfather Lito, who was reluctant to leave his beloved Cuba, anyway, sacrifices himself for the sake of the others by falling into the sea and shouting for help. The Coast Guard must stop to rescue him and take him back to Cuba, allowing the rest to paddle fast as the boat falls apart. Isabella’s mom gives birth to Mariano, a son, and har dad gives the baby to Isabella while they carry her mom ashore:
“Then the engines roared, the sea churned, and the Coast Guard ship disappeared out to sea. The Castillo and Fernandez families helped each other up onto the sandy beach, and their wet feet became dry feet. Señor Castillo fell to his knees and kissed the ground. They had made it to the States. To freedom. Still in a dream, Isabel wobbled up the sand toward the flashing lights and thumping music and dancing people. She stepped into the light, and the music stopped and everyone turned to stare. Then suddenly people were running to help her and her family. A tan young woman in a bikini dropped into the sand beside Isabel. “Oh, my God, chiquita,” she said in Spanish. “Did you just come off a boat? Are you Cuban?” “Yes,” Isabel said. She was trembling, but she clung to Mariano like she would never let him go. “I’m from Cuba,” Isabel said, “but my little brother was born here. He’s an American. And soon I will be too.”
The third and last story is about Mahmoud and his family trying to escape Aleppo, Syria (4) in 2015, as Bashar al-Assad murders his own people in rains of bombs for years, attempting to put down rebellion by elimination rather than compromise. (5) Their first attempt is to get to Greece on the Mediterranean; his father pays for passage on a boat. Then the boat is delyed, day after day. When the ferry finally arrives, it’s nothing but an inflatable dinghy, and now far too many people are crammed on board. As they near Lesbos the dinghy crashes onto rocks. Many drown. Mahmoud’s mother is desperately trying to hold his baby sister’s head above water, but Hana, slight as she is, becomes too much to bear after many hours. A boat nears and Mahmoud makes a desperate attempt to grab hold as it passes, unwilling or unable to help. At last, he gives Hana to someone on board and tells them her name, begging them to keep her safe and alive. His mother will never fully recover from the loss of her youngest child. Mahmoud’s family will walk hundreds of miles in an attempt to get to Germany, which is accepting Syrian refugees. They get to the Macedonian border by paying their way—at first they have a substantial fund to escape—but they are continually forced to spend more than originally agreed, at point after point, and they have no options but to rely on strangers who may hate them:
“They were stopped in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway surrounded by dark, empty fields. And the taxi driver was leaning over the backseat with a pistol aimed straight at them.” Although his father gives this man a considerable fortune, he abandons them, anyway.
In Hungary they are first shot with gas and then imprisoned among many other Syrian refugees. His father is brutally beaten merely for speaking, and he, too, is handcuffed.
“Head down, hoodie up, eyes on the ground. Be unimportant. Blend in. Disappear. That was how you avoided the bullies.” Here is a parallel between Josef and Mahmoud, who both initially decide to submit as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Both decide later that they will do whatever they can to survive, for as long as they can. In this Gratz informs the reader that the struggle to endure is universal.
Left without food or water for lengths of time in the Hungarian prison, when food does come it’s sandwiches tossed at the crowd as though they were zoo animals. When an international group arrives to observe, however, they seize their chance to leave and walk out en masse—under observance, there’s nothing the Hungarians can do to stop them. They walk many more miles, until only Austria lies between them and Germany:
“When Mahmoud finished his prayers and opened his eyes, he saw a small group of Austrians had gathered at the edges of the praying refugees. There were police officers there too, and more cars with flashing lights. Mahmoud sagged. They only see us when we do something they don’t like, he thought again. The refugees had stopped to get down on their knees and pray, and these people watching them didn’t do that. Didn’t understand. Now the refugees looked foreign again, alien. Like they didn’t belong. Mahmoud worried what the crowd might do when the Austrians told them they didn’t want them. Their march through Hungary had been peaceful until now. Would this turn into another fight that would see them gassed and handcuffed and thrown into prison again? “Welcome to Austria!” one of the Austrians said in heavily accented Arabic, and others yelled “Willkommen!” and applauded. Actually applauded them. Mahmoud looked around at Waleed, who was as stunned as Mahmoud. Was there some mistake? Did these people think they were something other than Syrian refugees? Suddenly, they were surrounded by Austrians—men, women, and children all smiling and trying to shake their hands and give them things. A woman gave Mahmoud’s mother a handful of clean clothes, and a man worried over his father’s cuts and bruises. A boy about Mahmoud’s age wearing a New York Yankees jersey handed him a plastic shopping bag with bread and cheese and fruit and a bottle of water in it. Mahmoud was so thankful he almost wept.
“Thank you,” Mahmoud said in Arabic. “Bitte,” the boy said, which Mahmoud guessed was German for
“You’re welcome.”
In Germany Mahmoud and his family are given a host family who will help them learn German and become accustomed to life in their new home. The elderly couple who open their home to them don’t speak a word of Syrian, and Mahmoud and his family don’t speak any German. They are a Jewish couple, while Mahmoud and his family are Muslim. Still, the welcome is warm and friendly. Through the translator who’s introduced them, Mrs. Rosenberg tells Mahmoud about Josef’s sacrifice on her behalf, and how she was left alone in Germany, raised by a kindly French woman thereafter. She shows him photos of her children, and their children, and all her great-grandchildren, telling them Josef gave his life for all of them. And she assures Mahmoud’s mom they WILL find Hana, that they won’t give up.
And so the book comes full circle.
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*Gratz’s 2017 novel Refugee has spent more than five years on the New York Times bestseller list, and is the winner of 14 state awards. Its other accolades include the Sydney Taylor Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction Award, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor, and a Malka Penn Award for Human Rights Honor. Refugee was also a Global Read Aloud Book for 2018.
--List of Awards. (WHEW!) From: https://www.alangratz.com/writing/refugee/
2018 National Jewish Book Award Winner for Young Adults
2018 National Jewish Book Award Winner for Young Adults
ABC Best Books for Young Readers 2017
Junior Library Guild Selection
ABC Best Books for Young Readers 2017
Junior Library Guild Selection
USA Today bestseller
2019 Oklahoma Sequoyah Intermediate Book Award Winner
2018-2019 Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Grade 6-8 Winner
2018-2019 Maine Student Book Award Winner
2018-2019 Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award Winner
2019 North Carolina Children’s Book Award Winner
2018-2019 Lectio Book Award Winner
2019 North Dakota Flicker Tale Book Award Winner
2020 Illinois Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award Winner
2020 Wisconsin Golden Archer Medal Winner
2019-2020 Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Awards Honor Book
2020 Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award Winner
2019-2020 Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award Winner
2019-2020 Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award Winner
2020 California Young Reader Book Award Winner
2019-2020 Minnesota Maud Hart Lovelace Award Winner
2020 Hong Kong Golden Dragon Honor Award
2022 Buxtehuder Bulle Winner
2019 Utah Beehive Award Nominee
2018-2019 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award Nominee
2019 Sakura Medal Shortlist
2020 Nebraska Golden Sower Award Finalist
2020 New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award Nominee
2020 Washington State Sasquatch Book Award Nominee
2019 Hampshire (England) Book Award Finalist
2020 Iowa Teen Book Award Masterlist
2020 Colorado Children’s Choice Book Award Masterlist
2020 Hong Kong Battle of the Books List
2020 Pacific Northwest Young Reader’s Choice Award Masterlist
2020 New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award Masterlist
2021 German Youth Literature Award Nominee
The article continues: “ After the St. Louis arrived in Havana, the passengers learned that the Cuban government had canceled their landing permits. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) negotiated with Cuba on behalf of the passengers, but the negotiations failed and the Cuban government forced the ship to leave the harbor.
Although the ship sailed near the Florida coast, the US government did not allow the passengers to land, since they did not have US immigration visas and had not passed a security screening. American newspapers publicized the saga and many Americans sympathized with the passengers.
Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands each admitted a percentage of the passengers upon their return to Europe in June 1939. Many passengers were able to obtain immigration visas and leave for the United States before the German invasion of western Europe in May 1940, but 254 passengers were killed in the Holocaust.”
(2) “END OF WET FOOT/DRY FOOT
“There's a popular saying in Spanish — O todos en la cama, o todos en el suelo. It conveys a selfless commitment to equal treatment, and translates roughly like this: Either we all get the bed, or we all get the floor.
“Among many immigrants in the U.S., there's been a feeling that when it comes to the spoils of U.S. immigration policy, the government has given Cubans the bed all to themselves, while it has relegated others — Mexicans, Haitians, Central Americans — to the floor.
“This is because of the so-called wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which since 1995 has granted Cubans who touch American soil a privilege not afforded other immigrants who come without a visa: the right to stay and get on a fast track to citizenship.
“…Wet-foot, dry-foot allowed only those Cubans who made it to U.S. soil to stay. Those caught at sea were to be turned away. The stated hope was that the threat of getting repelled would discourage Cubans from risking their lives on rickety boats. But they kept coming, and once here, a green card was pretty much ensured.
“This special treatment ended this week [January 15, 2017] when, in the final days of his administration, President Obama announced an abrupt end to the policy, a capstone to his two-year-old effort to re-establish relations with Cuba. Effective immediately, Cubans arriving on U.S. soil without a visa will be treated just like any other immigrant. They will be turned away.
This does not mean Cubans will stop coming.” Excerpt: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/01/15/509895837/end-of-wet-foot-dry-foot-means-cubans-can-join-ranks-of-the-undocumented
(3)“The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy separated over 5,000 children from their parents, with no tracking process or records that would allow them to be reunited.”
“…[O] ne of the most interesting things I took away from this story was the degree to which people from within the bureaucracy, you know, people who held a political roles who had served under Presidents, both Republican and Democrat, also went along with zero tolerance, sometimes without even fully realizing it at the time…[I]t wasn't strategic at the time…to speak up and push back against Stephen Miller, given how much influence he had over the president. Others told me that they thought the idea was so outlandish that it would never be approved. So unfortunately, as a result of that, you have a series of conversations that take place over the course of two years and many discussions and many opportunities that people had to push back and they just didn't take those opportunities. And so that's how the policy ends up making it over the finish line, and then to the implementation stage.” Read further at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-trump-era-policy-that-separated-thousands-of-migrant-families-came-to-pass
(4) A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALEPPO “Located at the crossroads of several trade routes since the 2nd millennium B.C., Aleppo was ruled successively by the Hittites, Assyrians, Akkadians, Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Ayyubids, Mameluks and Ottomans who left their stamp on the city. The Citadel, the 12th-century Great Mosque and various 16th and 17th-centuries madrasas, residences, khans and public baths, all form part of the city's cohesive, unique urban fabric.
“The monumental Citadel of Aleppo, rising above the suqs, mosques and madrasas of the old walled city, is testament to Arab military might from the 12th to the 14th centuries. With evidence of past occupation by civilizations dating back to the 10th century B.C., the citadel contains the remains of mosques, palace and bath buildings. The walled city that grew up around the citadel bears evidence of the early Graeco-Roman street layout and contains remnants of 6th century Christian buildings, medieval walls and gates, mosques and madrasas relating to the Ayyubid and Mameluke development of the city, and later mosques and palaces of the Ottoman period. Read further at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/21/
(5) “Syria’s Civil War: The Descent Into Horror
“The civil uprising against the longtime rule of the Assads deteriorated into protracted civil war. Here’s a look at the elements that have deepened Syria’s tragedy.
“February 14, 2023
“Twelve years after protesters in Syria first demonstrated against the four-decade rule of the Assad family, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and nearly thirteen million people—more than half the country’s prewar population—have been displaced. Today, the country is fractured by actors with apparently irreconcilable interests: in areas beyond the regime’s control, extremists promoting a Sunni Muslim theocracy have eclipsed opposition forces fighting for a democratic and pluralistic Syria, while regional powers have backed various local forces to advance their geopolitical interests on Syria’s battlefields.
“The United States was at the forefront of a coalition conducting air strikes on the self-proclaimed Islamic State, but it abruptly pulled back some of its forces in 2019 ahead of an invasion of northern Syria by Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally. Since then, the Turkish military has pushed Kurdish forces, the United States’ main local partner in the fight against the Islamic State, from border areas. Russia, too, has carried out air strikes in Syria, coming to the Assad regime’s defense. Iranian forces and their Hezbollah allies have done the same on the ground, inadvertently making themselves the targets of strikes by Iran’s enemy Israel.” See: https://www.cfr.org/article/syrias-civil-war
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“The United States was at the forefront of a coalition conducting air strikes on the self-proclaimed Islamic State, but it abruptly pulled back some of its forces in 2019 ahead of an invasion of northern Syria by Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally. Since then, the Turkish military has pushed Kurdish forces, the United States’ main local partner in the fight against the Islamic State, from border areas. Russia, too, has carried out air strikes in Syria, coming to the Assad regime’s defense. Iranian forces and their Hezbollah allies have done the same on the ground, inadvertently making themselves the targets of strikes by Iran’s enemy Israel.” See: https://www.cfr.org/article/syrias-civil-war
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