Boy, Everywhere

by A. M. Dassu

Overview

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her publishing deal advances for Boy, Everywhere to assist Syrian refugees in her city and set up a grant to support an unpublished refugee/recently immigrated writer.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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643791968
Publisher:	Lee & Low Books
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	638,448
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/26/2021

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.)

Publishers Weekly

* "Strongly evoked themes of family, homesickness, and friendship cohere in this resonant portrait of one teen's contemporary refugee experience." — Publishers Weekly, starred review

* "Absolutely essential." — Booklist, starred review

* "Compelling, informative, hopeful." — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Carefully researched, wholly convincing, it's a gripping, uncompromising debut, super-charged with the power of empathy." — The Guardian

"Dassu provides a fresh perspective on the Syrian refugee experience." — School Library Journal

"Such a realistic story, Sami could be my son, daughter, or any of their friends." — Mayida Yord, Teacher in Damascus, Syria

Editors' Choice Books for Youth 2022 - Booklist

From the Publisher

02/12/2021

Gr 5 Up—"I didn't realize how good life was until it all went wrong" Eighth grader Sami al-Hafez leads a privileged life in Damascus, Syria. His biggest concern used to be whether he and his best friend would make the soccer team. But when his mother and younger sister are injured in a bombing of a local shopping mall, Sami and his family realize that the Syrian civil war is now at their doorstep and they must leave their home. The author not only chronicles Sami's perilous journey from Syria, through Turkey and Greece, and eventually to England, but the difficulty of leaving loved ones behind and starting anew in a country where the laws and people aren't so welcoming. Short chapters help keep the pace of this first-person narrative moving, even when we see Sami waiting for circumstances to change—a situation that is reinforced throughout the story as common to being a refugee. For readers who enjoyed Katherine Marsh's Nowhere Boy or Jasmine Warga's Other Words for Home, this book also offers a fresh perspective and a relatable main character. The text could be paired with Don Brown's graphic nonfiction title The Unwanted for academic purposes. VERDICT Dassu provides a fresh perspective on the Syrian refugee experience, giving readers a glimpse at a range of ordeals. Recommended for purchase.—Monisha Blair, formerly at Rutgers Univ., NJ

School Library Journal

★ 2021-02-09
A Syrian refugee story that disrupts stereotypes while tugging at readers’ heartstrings.

Sami is your average 13-year-old boy growing up in Damascus. He loves playing soccer and video games and hanging out with his friends. Even though the Syrian civil war has been going on for many years, Sami’s life has hardly changed…until the fateful day when his mother and sister are injured during a bombing at a shopping mall. Realizing they are no longer safe, Sami’s parents—a surgeon and a school principal—arrange to flee, seeking asylum in England. The journey is not an easy one, as Sami and his family face danger, intimidation, and discrimination as they try to reach England and rebuild their lives. Dassu carefully creates a story that embodies, through relatable and realistic characters, the spirit of Syrian refugees hoping to find safety and self-sufficiency. Descriptions of modern-day Damascus accurately blend tradition and modernity, religion and culture. The most compelling element is Sami’s voice as he struggles with not only becoming a refugee, but guilt over having asked his mother to go to the mall to pick up his soccer cleats on the day of the bombing. He authentically conveys the thoughts of a teenage boy trying to cope with anxiety and loss; likewise, the pride and hope of Syrian refugees are brought to life through Sami’s eyes.

Compelling, informative, hopeful. (map, author's note, glossary) (Fiction. 11-14)

Kirkus Reviews