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Refugee Week Book Blog: Mama’s Nightingale, A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat, illustrated by Leslie Staub

Claire Storey

Today’s book comes from a different part of the world but one that faces it’s own challenges: Mama’s Nightingale, A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat, illustrated by Leslie Staub (Dial Books).

This book is written from the perspective of Saya, a young girl in America, whose Haitian Mama is in the Sunshine Correctional, “a prison for women without papers”. We feel Saya and her Papa’s sadness that Mama can’t be with them and the pain of separation following a prison visit. Mama starts to send Saya a cassette tape every week with a bedtime story recorded on to it and Saya listens to the tape, imagining Mama tucking her in and kissing her goodnight.

Papa keeps writing to newspaper reporters, the mayor, the congresswoman but nobody ever writes back. One day Saya asks if she can write and she does just that. She writes her story in her words which is then sent to the papers. One paper picks up on her story and soon they are inundated with people wanting to talk to Saya and Papa about Mama. consequently, Mama’s case gets brought before a judge (a black female judge!) and finally she is allowed home while she waits for her papers.

The illustrations in this book are wonderful. The colours and the imagery are just fabulous. I love colour and this is so bright and captivating. We see the nightingale pictured on most pages, sometimes in a cage, sometimes free. The use of thought and sound bubbles help to imagine what Saya is thinking and feeling – a locked padlock here, an unlocked padlock later on, and Mama, floating all around.

When my 8 year old son and I read this, it sparked such a big discussion. The concept of “papers” is completely alien to him. So first we had to look on his wall map to see where Haiti is in relation to America. We then talked about work permits, relating that to his aunt, who lives in Australia. We then got onto Brexit and how at the moment we can live and work anywhere in Europe. We used his classroom and classmates as the example of the 49% vs. 51% and discussed democracy. We kept on going and I fetched out my old passport with stamps and visas for places like Australia and India, which he found fascinating. And all because we read a book. Amazing!

For more World Kid Lit titles, you can also visit the World Kid Lit blog.

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Refugee Week Book Blog: Lost and Found Cat by Doug Kuntz and Amy Shrodes. Illustrated by Sue Cornelison

Claire Storey

An extra one for you today: Lost and Found Cat by Doug Kuntz and Amy Shrodes. Illustrated by Sue Cornelison (Crown Books).

Like this morning’s book, Flucht, this story is about a family that takes their cat with them on their journey. Rather than a fictional tale however, this one is true.

The story begins with the family leaving Iraq and, unwilling to leave their beloved cat Kunsush behind, they take him with them, hiding him in a basket. It all goes well until the boat-crossing to Greece, when the cat basket gets broken in the chaos of landing and Kunkush runs away in fear.

The family are distraught at the loss of their cat but have to move on to their next destination. Kunkush meanwhile tries to fit in with a group of local cats but is rejected by them. Some volunteers come across a starving, bedraggled Kunkush and, having heard the story of the family who lost their cat, set out to reunite them.

It is story of people’s love for animals and the lengths people will go to out of human kindness. The fact that the story was shared so far and wide on social media before the book was produced, shows how it has touched a core with many people. You can watch a YouTube video about Kunkush’s journey here. I find it incredible to think that the family managed to hide the cat in a basket for so long without him being discovered.

The rejection by the other cats can also be seen as a metaphor for the rejection of people by other people. By concentrating on the cat’s journey, it opened up discussion about the human journey, too. The map at the back really helped to visualise just how far this family and their cat had travelled.

What my kids had to say:

Dominic (8): I thought the photos at the end were interesting because I hadn’t realised it was a true story. 

Emma (5): The cat’s really cute!

For more World Kid Lit titles, you can also visit the World Kid Lit blog.

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Refugee Week Book Blog: Crossing the sea with Syrians on the exodus to Europe by Wolfgang Bauer, trans. Sarah Pybus

Claire Storey

Crossing the sea with Syrians on the exodus to Europe by Wolfgang Bauer, translated from German by Sarah Pybus (And Other Stories).

In 2014, award-winning journalist Wolfgang Bauer and photographer Stanislav Krupar go undercover, joining a group of Syrians trying to get across the sea to Europe. Witnessing first-hand the smuggler gangs, the desperation, the anxiety and the very real dangers of drowning, this is Wolfgang Bauer’s account of his attempt to cross the sea.

It is a deeply moving story of human desperation and determination. These are not just facts and figures we hear about on the radio and read about in the paper; these are people with lives and families.

After days of travelling across land and hiding in flats, waiting for the right moment to cross, Wolfgang and Stanislav’s attempt to cross the sea ends in arrest and deportation. A poignant moment is where Wolfgang and Stanislav have revealed their true identities and Wolfgang observes that “in a matter of seconds, those papers transformed us into different people. From prisoners to privileged frequent flyers”.

After their deportation, Wolfgang has to follow his friends’ journeys from afar. One of the men, Amar (not his real name), makes so many attempts to cross the sea, thinking all the while of his wife and children who will follow him once he makes it. Time and again his efforts are thwarted and he returns to the same cheap hotel to plan his next move. When he finally made it across, having travelled to Africa and taken a flight to Germany on a false passport, I was moved to tears.

We are also told of the journey of brothers Alaa and Hussan, who get onto a boat and make that perilous crossing. In the description of that crossing it is plain to see the panic, the fear, the despair of those on board and the realisation of how near death may be : “We might die out here.”

The book finishes with an impassioned plea from Wolfgang Bauer: “Stop forcing men, women and children onto the boats. Have mercy”. Will the world take note?

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Refugee Week Book Blog: The Gurugu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (trans. Jethro Soutar)

Claire Storey

Today’s adult title on my Refugee Week Book Blog is The Gurugu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, translated from Spanish by Jethro Soutar (And Other Stories).

To give some background to the novel, it is worth mentioning that Spain has two enclaves in Northern Africa: Melilla and Ceuta. As Spanish territories and therefore European territories, they act as a glimmer of hope to refugees desperate to make it to Europe. Climbing the fence to Europe is perhaps less perilous than the alternative boat journeys to the mainland but it is still fraught with danger. Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is a writer from Equatorial Guinea who now lives in exile in Spain.

This novel joins a group of Africans living on the side of Mount Gurugu in Morocco, not far from the border with Melilla. For the most part, the migrants are left to their own devices as long as they stay up on the mountain, but they are rejected by the local population and treated brutally by the Moroccan police should they stray into the local towns looking for food or medical aid. On the mountain there is precious little to eat and inhabitants are lucky to get a blanket to sleep under in their caves at night

The first part of the book focuses on storytelling, the Africans sharing their stories among each other, telling the reasons for leaving their homelands. Interspersed with these stories, we are also given an idea of what life is like on the mountain. Playing football offers some relief from the daily battles against hunger and idleness: they are not allowed to work, they have nowhere else to go and so football keeps their bodies and minds engaged. They organise a tournament, but on the day of the tournament, an occurrence take place which means the tournament does not go ahead.

We are told the story of Shania. The group she is travelling with reaches a checkpoint run by “bandits dressed in official uniforms but accountable to nobody”. Spotting a woman amongst the group, the supervisor becomes “exercised and upset”. He takes Shania and shuts her in a room. Shania’s husband is at a loss as to what to do and so another man in the group comes forward and negotiates with the supervisor. Shania is released and the group leaves the checkpoint, Shania with tears flooding down her face, a disgusting smell emanating from her body. In her fear, she has soiled herself. She removes her underwear and leaves them at the side of the path. The young man who has negotiated her release promises to buy her a new pair of knickers, but “the promise became a threat”. And so in order to pay her debt, Shania is regularly called upon at night by different men sent to her by the man who “saved” her. While Shania has been saved from one awful fate, she is now living a nightmare.

Due these repeated visits, Shania and another woman are now in need of desperate medical attention. As they cannot walk, the women are carried to look for help, but rather than receive the assistance they desperately require, they are beaten by the police and left for dead. Shania miscarries in a “dry riverbed at the bottom of Mount Gurugu”. Two men escape before the beating and return to camp to tell the story and the following morning Shania and those with her hear “war cries coming from further up the mountain.” What happens next is the migrants response.

Ávila Laurel packs in so many different themes in this relatively slender book. For a look at some of these other themes, please read this fantastic review by Kapka Kasabova on the Guardian website. As Kasabova states, this is “a stark reminder that what is dystopia to some is everyday reality to others”. Two topics that really stood out for me are the abuse and suffering of women and Ávila Laurel’s discussions on the aspirations of black children.

On children he says: “You can’t expect a child, no matter how humble, to say when I grow up I want to be an agency cleaner at Charles de Gaulle airport. Or when I grow up I want to be a fake-handbag salesman, never mind a razor-wire acrobat or a shipwreck rescuee.” We need role models in society of all colours to inspire and encourage all children to achieve their full potential.

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Refugee Week Book Blog: The Journey by Francesca Sanna

Claire Storey

Today’s book choices focus on journeying, starting with a book endorsed by Amnesty International: The Journey by Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye Books).

As the author explains, this isn’t a book about a specific journey and, as such, the reader isn’t told where the family are fleeing from and where they are going to. The book is written in the first person from the child’s perspective. One particularly heart-wrenching page is nearly all black with the words: And one day the war took my father. The mother is left alone with her children and takes the decision to leave the country with her two children.

The inner strength of the mother really comes through. On one page we see the mother holding her awake children to her and the colours around her include splashes of oranges and yellows and greens. On the opposite page we see the same image but the children are asleep and only now does the mother release her tears, the colours now muted blues and darker greens. I love how the tears form part of the the mother’s hair.

As the family progress on their journey, we see all the different ways they travel: in their own car, in the back of a van, in a lorry squashed among vegetables, on a bike, on foot, by boat and finally by train. We feel the despair and the fear along the way, as they hide in bushes trying not to attract attention to themselves. We leave the family on a train, crossing many borders. The book closes saying: I hope, one day, like these birds, we will find a new home. A home where we can be safe and begin our story again. Powerful words from a powerful book.

The illustrations in this book are just stunning and there is such detail, cleverly weaving dangerous looking eyes and fingers into the background.

What my daughter had to say:

Emma (5): I like all the birds at the end. I wouldn’t like to do a journey like that. 

For more World Kid Lit titles, you can also visit the World Kid Lit blog.

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