Making It Home

Children from around the world share their personal experiences with war and other forms of conflict that have shattered their homes and families, in a powerful volume that shows readers what it's like to be a refugee. Simultaneous.

Grade 4 Up–These brief narratives by young people escaping their war-torn lands and lives are significant because while only 20 voices are presented here, Beverley Naidoos introduction states that more than 20 million children and their families have been forced to leave their homes to escape from the effects of war in recent years. Narrators from Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, and Burundi reveal the injustices of their lives, forced by fate to have anything but normal childhoods. A short introduction precedes each narrative or set of narratives and gives the history of the countrys conflict, providing much-needed background information. The selections were written by children as young as 6, with most of them by teenagers, up to 17. The pain of their experiences is raw; losing a parent or siblings changes their view of the world, and yet, despite it all, the universal feeling is one of hope for the future. The contributors have little to fear, having survived the worst. A centerfold features full-color photos of several of the young people.–Alexa Sandmann, Kent State University, OH
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Gr. 5-8. "We took flight from the war a long time ago. . . . Nobody tells me why. . . .We saw lots of people dying and houses burning down." Displaced by war, children from Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, and Burundi talk about the horror left behind, the family separation, and the struggle to adjust to a new place, whether as a refugee in a camp or as an asylum seeker in the U.S. Their first-person accounts, many with full-color photos, have been collected by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which runs programs to aid war-traumatized children, and anonymous writers supply short introductions to each war zone. Many of the kids' voices sound the same, and there's too much politics for one small book. But the aching personal details will grab readers, as will the global connections. As Beverly Naidoo points out in her foreword, these stories challenge the racism against today's asylum seekers. For another contemporary story, see Helen Howard's Living as a Refugee in America: Mohammed's Story, on p.42. Hazel Rochman
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