Stormy Seas: Stories of Young Boat Refugees

by Mary Beth Leatherdale, Eleanor Shakespeare (Illustrator)

Overview

The phenomenon of desperate refugees risking their lives to reach safety is not new. For hundreds of years, people have left behind family, friends, and all they know in hope of a better life. This book presents five true stories about young people who lived through the harrowing experience of setting sail in search of asylum: Ruth and her family board the St. Louis to escape Nazism; Phu sets out alone from war-torn Vietnam; José tries to reach the U.S. from Cuba; Najeeba flees Afghanistan and the Taliban; Mohamed, an orphan, runs from his village on the Ivory Coast. Aimed at middle grade students, Stormy Seas combines a contemporary collage-based design, sidebars, fact boxes, timeline and further reading to produce a book that is ideal for both reading and research. Readers will gain new insights into a situation that has constantly been making the headlines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554518968
Publisher:	Annick Press, Limited
Publication date:	04/11/2017
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	269,534
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	890L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

Mary Beth Leatherdale writes, edits and consults on books, magazines, and digital resources for children and youth.

Eleanor Shakespeare is an illustrator and designer specializing in collage and photomontage image making. She works across publishing, editorial and design, and is the artist-in-residence at a high school in South London.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/01/2017
Gr 4–7—Across time, desperation has driven people from their homes in search of refuge—and the only way out is often through a stormy passage on the sea. Ruth was one of 900 Jewish people who boarded a ship, hoping to escape Nazi Germany; Mohammed, orphaned during the civil war in the Ivory Coast, scrounged up money to board a narrow, crowded boat headed for Europe. While Shakespeare provides evocative collage artwork, Leatherdale deftly retells the stories in spare but honest language; the text does not shy away from the perilous circumstances that the young people both escaped from and encountered. There are no guarantees of happy endings, but the information is important for students to understand. It is impossible to ignore the importance of a book like this in the current political climate, and educators and librarians looking for a human face for the refugee crisis will find this offering essential. VERDICT A timely, powerful piece of nonfiction, this is a first purchase for most collections.—Erinn Black Salge, Saint Peter's Preparatory School, Jersey City

School Library Journal

★ 03/27/2017
This composite portrait of the struggles of 20th- and 21st-century boat refugees is alternately harrowing, wrenching, and hopeful. Leatherdale (coauthor of Urban Tribes and Dreaming in Indian) provides compact profiles of five adolescents who, between 1939 and 2006, left their homelands to escape violence and repressive regimes. In 1939, 18-year-old Ruth was among more than 900 German Jews aboard the SS St. Louis who were turned away from Cuba (and several other North and South American nations, including the U.S.); decades later, 13-year-old José and his family fled Cuba in what became known as the Mariel boatlift. Sidebars provide historical context, and the asylum-seekers’ first-person accounts bring immediacy and urgency to their stories (four of the former refugees are still alive, and shared their stories with the author). Displacement, desperation, isolation, and persecution are common to all five stories, and although closing passages offer somewhat heartening updates on what happened to each individual, Leatherdale never sugarcoats the human cost of these tragedies. Shakespeare’s (Cut, Paste, Create) photo collages underscore the peril and perseverance of the journeys, which serve as powerful mirrors to current humanitarian crises. Ages 10–up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly