Finding Refuge

I teach high school. Teens have a particularly hard time understanding or empathizing with others. Especially in the last few years when compassion has been hard to find.

Finding Refuge is broken up into sections of refugee experiences based on the home country of the individual writers. Each section begins with a brief description of the country. The individual stories that follow describe the teenage refugee’s experiences on their way to safety.

I think this would be a wonderful addition to a school library. But I can see using this in the classroom as well. Broken up, it could be used to accompany lessons in a social studies class.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lerner Publishing for the opportunity to give an honest review of this book.

I like a lot of things about Finding Refuge. First, I think the format of the text is very effective. The author does a great job of giving the reader a brief overview of historical context as well as some geopolitical context.. The maps are helpful as well. Next, the author has a strong collection of stories from students who represent the gamut of refugees; some refugee's stories were hard-hitting while others had fewer hardships. Some families were able to wait in relatively comfortable, safe conditions, while others spent half their young lives in dangerous refugee camps. It's important to have that kind of variety to showcase the wide scope of experiences.

My main critique of the text is that each student appears to answer a specific prompt rather than an open-ended probing question. The student writers might say things like, "I want Americans to know..." or "I'm so grateful to be in America..." Many of the stories start off in the same way; i.e. where the student was born or where they grew up. Their stories are all so different and unique that it seems like a disservice that each should start the same. It seems to sterilize each writer's personality. One exception was Slava. As a reader, I got a greater sense of his personality and incredulity when he asked questions like, "How is this a better life? How can we trade that for this?" Additionally, he made some interesting cultural observations like, "Everywhere I went, people were always smiling, for no reason. I thought, Are you drunk?" I wished more of the stories had that level of candor. At times, the students teased details but ultimately withheld them; of course, they can establish their own boundaries, but it does create some distance between the writer and the reader. It's somewhat unfortunate in this case because a text like this would do a fantastic job of teaching empathy to younger readers.

As an educator, I see this being an excellent text to teach in a middle school English class with a cross-curricular focus in Social Studies. Students may also have their own stories and connections to contribute to the conversation, and it could be a big learning experience for both their classmates and teachers.