Kids need to understand this, with so many people from all over the world coming to America all the time. HOME OF THE BRAVE is a moving, amazingly well-written novel detailing a young boy’s struggles to adapt to life in a new country, an important topic. The verse is simple and powerful, told in first person through Kek’s eyes. I mentioned my lack of expectations for this book, but it totally blew me away. Kek has his aunt and Ganwar, a new friend named Hannah, the man from the Refugee Resettlement Center named Dave, and an old woman named Louise who lets Kek look after her cow, whom he names Gol, the word in his native language for family.
To dishwashers, blue jeans, grocery stores, and other such things we take for granted. Kek struggles to adapt to life in America–to school, where he is in an ESL class with kids from all over the world. He doesn’t know where she is, or even if she’s alive. Before he came to the US, though, he got separated from his mother. Then, the men with guns came and killed many people, but Kek and his mother got away and went to a refugee camp. His life at first was in a village in Sudan, with his family and his cattle and freedom. Someone, please, correct me if I’m wrong.Īnyway, Kek is quite obviously not used to life in America. Also, aren’t there a lot of African immigrants in that area? I think I read a magazine article about it. It sounds like Minnesota, there’s lots of snow and it’s really cold, and one character in the book mentions being from Minneapolis and having a brother who lives in St. This novel is told from the point of view of Kek, a young boy who comes alone to America from his home in Sudan, having lost his father and brother, not knowing where his mother is, to live with his aunt and older cousin. And it’s not sci-fi (thought I think she’s written other non-sci-fi books before, just nothing I’ve ever read). It’s also a verse novel, something that can be hard to master. It’s her first stand-alone novel, for one thing.
I was also unsure because HOME OF THE BRAVE is, to my knowledge, totally unlike anything Applegate has written before. Because, well, as exciting as the Animorphs books are to a nine-year-old, they’re not really very well-written. However, I wasn’t sure how great the writing would be in HOME OF THE BRAVE. I loved these books when I was younger, and even today, though I realize they’re far from being great literature, I still enjoy rereading my favorites. Katherine Applegate is also known as KA Applegate, creator of the Animorphs series (and writer of many of them, though quite a few were ghostwritten). * Home of the Brave is a 2007 Cybils Middle Grade Fiction nomine*
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