My email mailbox is often full of
book offers, newsletters from publishers, advertisements for the newest and
latest books coming to a store near you.
That’s good. I’m not
complaining. Books are my thing. I do
still purchase children’s picturebooks even though I’m old. Every once in
awhile I take a chance on something sight unseen. This book arrived
yesterday. This is one I took a chance
on and I am so glad.
Our world is getting smaller by
the day and we can’t hide from that.
There are millions of people who are caught in the middle in war zones who
need to get out. All of our countries have
been asked to take in refugees. We see
their plight on the news at night. We
see horrifying pictures of children caught in the crossfire of the emigrant and
refugee life. We hear the newscasters explaining
to us what we see. But how do we explain
these images to a child? How do we
explain what it might be like to leave everything and travel by night and in
secret and in the trust of strangers to escape to a strange and hopefully safe
place?
Author Francesca Sanna explains in her
author notes that she met some children in a refugee center in Italy and after
talking to them realized there are many stories out there, all different yet
all the same. She took these personal
stories and put them into the mouth of a child to tell us.
I didn’t receive this book for
free with the promise to give it time and space on my blog. I purchased this book and it was so movingly
told and brilliantly illustrated I wanted to tell you about it. This is a hard thing to explain to a child
but empathy is a necessary thing. And this
book, The Journey, does it so well.
Sounds like a winner--will have to see this one :)
ReplyDeleteEmpathy is hard, it means we feel and can no longer ignore. Brilliant concept in sharing stories. I recently heard a lecture on the radio by a writer titled..."Why writing matters. " I listened as he started to expand on why writing is integral to our society and then he took us to the plights of those refugees that Australia has seen fit to incarcerate because they took to the seas to escape. The lecture was brilliant and I cannot do it justice, but it was certainly powerful and bringing in the stories of those who we try to ignore shows us that indeed writing is what tells the stories that matter. Well done on finding that book to show others.
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