Refugee by Alan Gratz

There are so many reasons why this book was one of the books selected for the Global Read Aloud. Refugee is so hard to read at times but it is full of hope. This book is absolutely relevant in this day and age with all of the conflict surrounding immigration and refugees fleeing home without any other chance of survival. Speaking of survival--this book is all about survival! I finished this book several days ago and it still haunts me. While reading this book and even now, I feel like I was right there with the characters. The images stay with me and I was reminded that while this book is fiction--these kinds of things have happened and continue to happen all over the world. It is unsettling.

This book follows three young people in three different places and times. Josef is fleeing Nazi Germany  for Cuba with his family and touches on a piece of World War II history I didn't know before reading this book. Isabel is fleeing Fidel Castro's Cuba for Miami with her family in 1994. They are on a tiny boat; storms and sharks are only two of the many obstacles they face. Mahmoud's family is fleeing Syria to Europe in 2015 after a bomb explodes into their apartment building.

This book would be an amazing read aloud in middle school classrooms. The conversations that could be had surrounding this book could be eye-opening and changing to kids and adults alike. I can't wait to talk to everyone I know about this book.