Gratz, Alan Refugee

Gratz, Alan      Refugee          Scholastic Press         2017   338p   16.99  978-0-545-88083-1            ms/jr  Conflict           VG-BN 

Isabel (Cuban), Mahmoud (Syrian) and Josef (Jewish) tell the stories of their families’ harrowing escapes from a dictator, a civil war, and Nazi Germany.  Each child is deeply torn by the adult decisions forced on them, the dangers of the journey and the devastating loss felt by all three.           

Three perspectives, each depicting an escape from a real life political quagmire, combine to tell the story of children who suffer untold horrors as they navigate their journeys to a new life.  Author Alan Gratz weaves the three perspectives together, always ending a chapter with a transition which keeps the reader guessing what might happen when, three chapters later, the story continues.  Josef and his family are the first refugees, German Jews who escape Nazi Germany, but not before Father experiences the horrors of Dachau.  When the family embarks on a lifesaving journey to Cuba, it continues to experience the same prejudice which almost destroyed the family back in Germany.  Move forward to the second perspective, to Cuba circa 1994 when Cubans attempted to come to mainland U. S. in boats, rafts or any device that permitted them to escape Castro’s regime which was characterized by lack of simple necessities to survive.  Isabel tells this story, and it is as tragic as Josef’s, with loss, emotional turmoil and obstacles too numerous to mention.  The final perspective is that of a young Syrian, Mahmoud, who escapes Syria with his family only to find country after country which will not accept Syrians.  The strength in Gratz’s story is that these children tell real stories, all based on factual accounts which Gratz includes at the end of the book.  Empathetic readers will come out of this reading having experienced the devastating emotions felt by the families involved in the escapes.  Gratz uses conflict at every turn of the page which might be a bit much for the reader who finds too much action and not enough time to recuperate, take a breath and think about what transpired.  When Josef’s mother has to choose which of her children will go to the concentration camp (a Sophie’s Choice kind of decision), a younger reader could struggle to fully comprehend the impact of that action taken by the Nazis to psychologically torture a fellow human being.   However, many older teen readers will find the action-packed, often violent, dangerous or traumatic situations to be enticing, and they will quickly become engrossed in what happens next to each of the three protagonists.  Young teens will, by and large, appreciate the way Gratz ties the three families together in the end.  The commonalities shared by the three protagonists are strong:  each child suffers loss; each child watches a parent’s near demise during the journey; each child is empowered to help the family reach its destination; each child faces incredible obstacles, and so much more.  Gratz is an accomplished storyteller who knows how to write characterizations and plot that appeal to his targeted age group.                                      Squaresky, Martha          Cuban, Syrian, Jewish refugees’ stories of escape