Do you remember Alan Kurdi, that poor Syrian kid who washed ashore on the Turkish coast? Do you remember mourning over the image of his poor little body, his parents’ dashed dreams, the tragic waste of his life? And then you turned away, right, because you have your own sanity to think about, and your own life to live? Well, Omar El Akkad does not want you to turn away. He wants you to consider Alan and his journey, even as you read about a boy who could have escaped the same fate. The book begins with bodies strewn on a beach, another wreckage of refugee dreams… but then a child stumbles to his feet and races away from the pursuing authorities. The story follows refugee child Amir as, in the past, he gets aboard a rickety boat sailing into the unknown; and, in the present, as he bonds with teenager Vanna despite their lack of common language, while she does her best to keep him safe. El Akkad mercilessly gives humanity to people on the boat that you know are doomed; likewise mercilessly, he shows you how the rest of the world goes about their holiday lives, closing their eyes to human desperation as it washes up on their shores.
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