Boy, Everywhere (Boy, Everywhere #1)
by A M Dassu (Author)
What turns citizens into refugees and then immigrants? In this powerful middle-grade debut, Sami and his family embark on a harrowing journey to save themselves from the Syrian civil war.
Sami loves his life in Damascus, Syria. He hangs out with his best friend playing video games; he's trying out for the football team; he adores his family and gets annoyed by them in equal measure. But his comfortable life gets sidetracked abruptly after a bombing in a nearby shopping mall. Knowing that the violence will only get worse, Sami's parents decide they must flee their home for the safety of the UK.
Boy, Everywhere chronicles their harrowing journey and struggle to settle in a new land. Forced to sell all their belongings and leave their friends and beloved grandmother behind, Sami and his family travel across the Middle East to Turkey, where they end up in a smuggler's den. From there, they cross the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean and manage to fly to England, only to be separated and detained in an immigration prison for the crime of seeking asylum. Yet the transition from refugee to immigrant in a new life will be the greatest challenge Sami has ever faced.
Based on the experiences of real Syrian refugees, this thoughtful middle-grade novel is the rare book to delve deeply into this years-long crisis. A. M. Dassu has used her publishing deal advances for Boy, Everywhere to assist Syrian refugees in her city and set up a grant to support an unpublished refugee/recently immigrated writer. Sami's story is one of survival, of family and friendship, of bravery and longing ... Sami could be any one of us.
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Kirkus
ALA/Booklist
[A]n absolutely essential [read].
Publishers Weekly
Sami, 13, has grown up an average middle-class Syrian boy, playing video games and hanging out with his best friend Joseph. Though much of the country has been torn apart by civil war, Damascus, Sami's home, has remained intact thus far. That changes, however, with terrifying news: the shopping center has been bombed--with Sami's mother and sister Sara inside. Though they survive the blast, the family decides to seek refugee status in England, realizing how precarious their situation in Syria has become. Dassu's accessible debut follows Sami and his family along their sweeping journey from Syria, through Turkey and Greece, to Manchester in the U.K. There, Sami struggles with past guilt amid the new environment, away from the luxuries of the home he was forced to leave behind. The novel explores Sami's preference for his Syrian life over his U.K. one, in which he must share a room with a bullying cousin and believes that his professional parents are "losing their self-respect"; Dassu presents a well-balanced portrayal of the range of attitudes a refugee might encounter. Though the fast-paced plot occasionally skips over narrative details, strongly evoked themes of family, homesickness, and friendship cohere in this resonant portrait of one teen's contemporary refugee experience. Back matter includes a glossary and author's note. Ages 9-14. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary. (Apr.)
Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
Carefully researched, wholly convincing, it's a gripping, uncompromising debut, super-charged with the power of empathy. —The Guardian
A. M. Dassu is the internationally acclaimed author of Boy, Everywhere, an ALA Notable Book which was also nominated for the Carnegie Medal and shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize. She won the We Need Diverse Books mentorship award in 2017 and serves on the Advisory Board of SCBWI-British Isles' Words & Pictures magazine. She is a director at Inclusive Minds, an organization for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality, and accessibility in children's literature. She lives in the heart of England, and you can find her on Twitter as @a_reflective, on Instagram as @a.m.dassu, or at amdassu.com.
Daby Zainab Faidhi is a versatile artist and illustrator acclaimed for her impactful work in animation, illustration, art direction, and painting. Her portfolio features contributions to award-winning film projects, including The Breadwinner, and most recently, co-art directing Merry Little Batman for WarnerBros. Explore her dynamic creations at zainabfaidhi.com.
JUV001010 - Juvenile Fiction | Action & Adventure | Survival Stories
JUV030110 - Juvenile Fiction | People & Places | Middle East
Refugees
England
Syria
Civil War, 2011-
Syrians
