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Review
Refugee. By Alan Gratz. New York: Scholastic Press, 2017. 338 pp. ISBN 978-0-545-
88083-1.

Like the traumatic events that compel three refugees to keep moving until they reach a safe
haven, a fast-paced narrative and plenty of cliff-hangers keep readers of Alan Gratz’s most
recent novel going until the end of the book. Alternating between the stories of three
protagonists drawn from different decades and different countries, the threads that connect
them across history and geography are gradually revealed by the American author in a clear
and accessible style. While the families are swept along by uncontrollable forces, when
moments of crisis occur, in each story, the children suddenly find the courage and stamina
to take decisions that put them in charge, even if only for that one moment, and these acts
of agency have consequences for the rest of their own and others’ lives. Similarly, the author
seems to urge readers to act once they’ve arrived, feeling both shocked and relieved, at the
end of their emotional vicarious journey, by presenting a separate section of the book
entitled: ‘What You Can Do’.
The three ‘kids’ (as the blurb on the dustjacket flap refers to them) are Josef, Isabel and
Mahmoud, all on the verge of adolescence but forced to take on the responsibilities of
adults as their families begin to fall apart due to the political situation in their countries of
origin: Germany in 1938, Cuba in 1994 and Syria in 2015. The last few years have seen the
publication of a number of similar novels (not to mention picturebooks), on the theme of
migration that target young readers, and not just in English. In the UK, readers can access
now-classic books on Jewish refugees such as The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier (1956) and
a growing number of authors are choosing to write about the more recent waves of refugees,
including Benjamin Zephaniah, Beverley Naidoo and Berlie Doherty. Some focus on the
events that force displacement, some describe the journeys, while others explore what
happens upon arrival, some deal with all three. Recent titles, The Bone Sparrow by Zana
Fraillon (2016) and Welcome to Nowhere by Elizabeth Laird (2017), are set in the limbo of
refugee camps, the former for Rohingyas in Australia; the latter for Syrians in Jordan.
In Gratz’s book, Mahmoud’s family avoids the refugee camps and attempts to get across
the Mediterranean directly to Europe. Narrowly avoiding drowning, they have to hand
baby Hana to strangers and realize they may never find her again. Isabel loses her best friend
to a shark attack in what would have been a relatively quick crossing of 90 miles of the
Atlantic if they had had a proper boat. As for Josef’s family, they manage to leave Nazi
Germany, but his father is lost to madness caused by the torture he witnessed during six
months in Dachau. Gratz does not refrain from describing the torture and other violence in
detail, clearly meaning to persuade readers that for these children and families, escape was
really the only possible way forward.
Some will find it disproportionate to draw parallels between the Holocaust, Bashar
al-Assad’s war crimes and Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. One could argue that from the per-
spective of the children involved, the loss and dangers they flee from are equally terrifying,
whether it is the loss of family members or of their homes. Yet there is no doubt that the risk

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of death for Jews in Nazi Germany, or for a young man in contemporary Syria was, and is,
certainly much higher than for a young person in Fidel’s Cuba. To some extent, the dif-
ference between the situations is reflected in the unexpected and harrowing ending of
Josef’s story. Mahmoud and Isabel do manage to reach respective havens, although the
recent popularity of the far right in both Germany and the US increasingly reveals cracks in
these supposed ‘safe’ places for anyone who is not really perceived as belonging to these
societies.
The explanation of the context behind the stories found in the Author’s Note at the end is
an important aspect of this book which seems to be directed mainly at young readers in the
US (the population of Syrian refugees is compared to the size of certain US states, for
example). The ‘What you can do’ section within the Note encourages readers to help
refugee families by donating money to international organizations such as UNICEF.
However, Gratz misses the chance to suggest how readers could engage with more local
and direct action or to point to steps they could take in their schools and communities,
which could be as simple as learning how to say ‘welcome’ in other languages and putting
up posters in schools or supporting local refugees or migrants (for example, from Central
and South America).
One of the commonalities between the stories Gratz tells is that they all involve sea
crossings and this connection is echoed by the visual image of waves and far-off mountains
that recurs throughout the book. Part of Mahmoud’s story also takes place on land, as the
family travel from Athens to Munich, encountering violent border guards, traffickers and
hostile tourists. Yet not all encounters during the refugees’ journeys are negative. Gratz has
taken care to depict the captain of the St Louis, the ship that historically carried Jewish
refugees to Cuba (and then back to Europe when they were not allowed on the island), as a
decent man who treated his passengers with respect. Concerned tourists in The Bahamas
bring food and drink to Isabel’s boat when it is blown off course by a storm and Mahmoud’s
family is warmly welcomed as they cross into Austria, Germany and finally, into the home
of a foster family in Munich, where the elderly lady’s identity proves to be the link between
all three stories.
Perhaps the most important thread running through all the literature on migration—
whether for children, young people or adults—and which Gratz has woven into this novel,
is the issue of visibility and the effect this has not only on refugees, but also on those who
come across them in person, on the screen or on the page. This is reflected in the change of
Mahmoud’s thoughts and actions:
Being invisible in Syria had kept him alive. But now Mahmoud began to wonder if
being invisible in Europe might be the death of him and his family. If no one saw
them, no one could help them. And maybe the world needed to see what was really
happening here. (214)
It was better to be visible. To stand up. To stand out [. . .] Mahmoud was invisible as
long as he did what he was supposed to do and as long as he was invisible he was safe,
and [the Hungarian soldier] was comfortable. It was time for both of those things to
change. (283)

Research has found that children’s literature with visual and/or mental imagery about
the refugee experience increases understanding and empathy among young readers

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(Arizpe et al., 2014). Gratz makes his characters visible through conjuring strong mental
imagery. This visibility can thus increase awareness and compassion and lead to civil action
to counter the growing nativist-nationalist sentiments and anti-migration stances around
the world. As long as Refugee and other books about migrants continue to make visible
these disturbing stories and insist on representing individuals that stand out positively in
the reader’s imagination, there is hope that things can change.
Evelyn Arizpe
School of Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Email: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/migration/mny007

Reference
Arizpe, E., et al. (2014) ‘Visualising Intercultural Literacy: Engaging Critically with
Diversity and Migration in the Classroom through an Image-Based Approach’,
Language and Intercultural Communication, 14/3: 304–21.
Fraillon, Z. (2016) The Bone Sparrow. Croydon: Orion Children’s Books.
Laird, E. (2017) Welcome to Nowhere. London: Macmillan Children’s Books.

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