Customer Reviews

Making It Home: Real-life Stories from Children Forced to Flee

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This is an excellent book for children. Like the other reviewer, I am an adult interested in refugees, the situations that lead to people becoming refugees, and how refugees adjust to their new locations.

This book does a good job of describing the refugee experiences of children from many different places. It provides a great balance of information. The situations are presented, but in a way, that will not be too scary for the target audience (of children). The book does discuss direct hardship, such as kids explaining that their uncle died in a bombing, discussion of landmines, or a child explaining that most of her family was killed & there are current threats that other family would be killed if they return, but it presents it without gruesome details.

This is an excellent book for opening up discussions with kids, so that you can determine if you wish to provide further information about conflicts and other issues around the world.

I like that the book provides some data and discusses the history/politics involved to show the bigger picture, but these are provided as an overview rather than bogging the book with too many details which might not keep a younger child's attention. Each chapter begins with a brief (2-3 pages) description of the issues within the particular region or country, such as Bosnia, and then follows with the children's stories of leaving that area, where they live now, their feelings about having to leave, etc.

All of the stories are presented where the refugee kids are asked about their dreams for the future, for their cultures or themselves, such as the desire to someday be able to return to their native land. In this sense, the book remains generally quite positive, showing the resiliency of these children.

Areas covered: Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, and Burundi. The children's stories are generally about 1 full page to 4 pages with older kids obviously sharing more. The book also includes a centerfold with 8 pages of colored photos of the kids. Maps are also included for the areas, and at least some if not all of the regions of focus include stories from more than one child.

Could also be an excellent book to supplement other discussions, such as classroom readings involving people from those countries, culture, or people overcoming diversity while retaining some hope for the future.

I was doing research for a novel about refugee children and decided to read this short book. I was quite disappointed with it because of the lack of depth of most of the children's accounts--then I realized this was written for children--they were the audience--not me. Many of the child refugees weren't even born in the country they were exiled/made refugees from. The stories of the African children were the best and the saddest. The first few stories were pretty tame.

It's a good book for children, but for adults wanting to learn what being a refugee is really like, this is not what your looking for. It will give you a good idea about what it's like to be a refugee, but if you're looking for depth, this is not the book. As a learning tool for middle grade children, it's perfect.

Paul Genesse
Author of The Golden Cord
www.paulgenesse.com