The Bone Sparrow

by Zana Fraillon

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Young Adult

Publication

Disney-Hyperion (2016), 240 pages

Description

"Subhi's contained world as a refugee in an Australian permanent detention center rapidly expands when Jimmie arrives on the other side of the fence and asks him to read her late mother's stories to her"--

User reviews

LibraryThing member celesteporche

Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention center after his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland, Subhi has only ever known life behind the fences. But his world is far bigger than that—every night, the magical Night Sea from his mother's stories brings him

gifts, the faraway whales sing to him, and the birds tell their stories. And as he grows, his imagination threatens to burst beyond the limits of his containment.
The most vivid story of all, however, is the one that arrives one night in the form of Jimmie—a scruffy, impatient girl who appears on the other side of the wire fence and brings with her a notebook written by the mother she lost. Unable to read it herself, she relies on Subhi to unravel her family's love songs and tragedies.
Subhi and Jimmie might both find comfort—and maybe even freedom—as their tales unfold. But not until each has been braver than ever before.

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LibraryThing member SueS7

Man's capacity for inhumanity is highlighted in this story in the treatment of refugees. The author writes a moving story of two young children coping with loss. Their friendship gives them strength and happiness in the midst of their struggles. I loved the conversations Subhi has with the rubber

duck, he has a great sense of humour.
It is with a heavy heart that I know these conditions exist and people are still trying to find their way to peace.

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LibraryThing member ClareRhoden

This book should come with a warning: it will break your heart, and you will never get some of these images and concepts out of your head.
Beautiful, aching, tender, disastrous, this book won the Readings YA book of the year 2017 from a very strong field of shortlisted novels (which I am currently

devouring). Addressing the uncomfortable and shameful response of ruch nations to the current refugee crisis, this book takes us delicately out of our time and place, and asks us to consider the issues through the age-old strategy of story telling.
Zana Fraillon is to be congratulated on such a wonderful achievement.

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LibraryThing member reader1009

fiction (children's middlegrade? /teen / adult) - harshness of refugee camps
The families in this story are of a Muslim minority fleeing persecution in Burma/Myanmar, living in a refugee camp in Australia (where they are not really wanted and are neglected), but their culture or religion isn't

really a part of this story--just that they came from a different place where they spoke a different language. The families in this story could be refugees from ANYWHERE, trying to eke out an existence in a refugee camp ANYWHERE (conditions may vary from place to place, but I'm guessing most of them would pose a significant concern for human rights).

YOU WILL CRY SO HARD. I don't know that I'd give this to an actual child because YOU WILL CRY SO HARD, and there is a scene that is 10x more intense and traumatic than I was expecting, but it is a really good book.

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