Refugee by Alan Gratz

Three children escaping tyranny and war is sadly, not a new story. The immigrant story is one of our times, and also of our past. Refugee looks at three fictional characters leaving their homelands for a journey seeking a better life. While each character is from a different time period in different parts of their world, their similarities are what reminds us that little has changed.

Josef's story starts in 1938 Berlin, Germany. Asleep at home, it is the evening of Kristallnacht and his home is ransacked by Nazis, who take his father, a lawyer, from his home. His father is eventually returned, but after being tortured and mentally beaten down, he is not the man he used to be. His family gets passage on the St. Louis, a cruise ship filled with Jewish refugees escaping the tyranny of Nazi Germany, bound for freedom in Cuba. Initially, his family believes that all is well...

Isabel's story starts in 1994 Havana, Cuba. She is a talented trumpet player, living under the communism of Fidel Castro. A riot has broken out in the streets, and Isabel enters the pandemonium looking for her father. She finds him being beaten by policemen and jumps in to stop it. Her father is now a marked man, and her family must leave Cuba. Isabel knows that her friend, Ivan's, father is building a boat. When Castro announces that he will not stop people from fleeing Cuba, Isabel convinces Ivan's family to allow Isabel's family to share their homemade boat to leave Cuba and head for Miami, where the freedom of the United States awaits.

Mahmoud's story starts in 2015 Aleppo, Syria. Mahmoud is a quiet boy with few friends. The Syrian civl war has taken its toll on Mahmoud. The sound of fighter jets, bombs, and gunfire has made him nervous. Everyday he must lead himself and his younger brother home from school, taking a different path to avoid fighters in the streets as well as bullies from school. Sitting at home, doing his homework, Mahmoud hears the whine of an incoming missile. He dives under the kitchen table and after the deafening sound of a bomb, discovers the whole side of his apartment is gone. His mother, baby sister and brother are okay. They find Mahmoud's father and the decision is made. They must leave. They grab what money they have, what belongings they can carry, and head for Germany, one of the few countries in Europe accepting Syrian refugees.

The difficult part of this book is knowing that what these three young people and their families go through is based on what people were/are experiencing. Each character goes through a series of unfortunate events, one more tragic than the next. The human will to survive and search for a better life is exemplified in these stories. While sometimes the stories get bogged down a bit, my curiosity kept me going.
Mark's Book Picks Score: 3.5

Reading Level: 5.3 • Interest Level: 4-7 • AR Points: 10 • Lexile: 800L  
Publisher: Scholastic • 338 Pages • Copyright: 2017 • ISBN: 978-0-545-88083-1 • Available in Perma-Bound binding.