The Bone Sparrow: Zana Fraillon

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As he reads aloud the tale of how Jimmie’s family came to be, both children discover the importance of their own stories in writing their futures. and how the hope invested in a vision of a better future can end up being the difference between making it out, and surrendering to despair.

D The only negative thing that I will say about the writing is that sometimes it is SO metaphorical that you actually lose yourself in it too much and I had to reread quite a few sections in this novel just to catch up on what was going on after zoning out. The characters are well developed, complete with realism to make them look believable in the eyes of the readers. Set in an Australian immigration detention centre, The Bone Sparrow is the story of 9 year old Subhi who was born in the camp after his mother and sister were forced to flee by boat from Myanmar. A lot of the pre-publication media I read about this book compared it to John Boyne's 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' but the only links between the two books that I could see was a friendship formed on two sides of a fence, and one child belonging to a persecuted ethnic group. Het is mooi dat verschillende elementen terugkomen in het verhaal en niet zomaar geschreven zijn, maar met een achterliggende gedachte.

I think this book is deserving of the allocades being heaped upon it, but like many books that are so worthy, it won't be a huge hit with the teenagers it is written for. It was difficult to find a passage that wasn't a) too long and b) spoiler-free so I've chosen this one (this might be a bit of a poor example but trust me, there is better stuff than this! Then that girl hocks up the biggest ball of snot I've ever seen - and I've seen some pretty big balls of snot being hocked around here - and she spits that snot right on to the ground.

Lack of enough food, clothes, water, places to bath, a school, or even a home (they live in tents) is all part of Sushi's life. I believe any age group ten and up should read “The Bone Sparrow,” but the fact that children can learn from the lessons contained within it gives me hope for the future of humanity. I did reread sections because I was just astounded with what Zana Fraillon could do with a sentence. The Bone Sparrow is a beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful and deeply moving novel that explores a tragic and relevant topic with incredibly skill.But once Eli is sent away to live with older single men in a different part of the camp, Subhi found yet another friend in his rubber duck that one of the guards brought for him and surprisingly he shared about his day with the duck and that duck advised right back him. Photograph: Robert Day Elmi Rashid Elmi (Eli), Yaamin Chowdhury (Subhi) and Siobhan Athwal (Queenie) in The Bone Sparrow at York Theatre Royal. Moving and memorable, The Bone Sparrow deserves to be read by all who care about our common humanity. The lives of refugees are hard, that we know, but how painful that are and how unfortunate that are, we rarely get to know that. This is the story of a young boy of Burmese descent who was born in a detention centre, this is his misery filled life and a grim picture of life in a refugee camp.

The Bone Sparrow', I hope, will certainly be a book that does just that, and it really deserves to be remembered and cherished for a long, long time.

Since asylum can be a confusing issue for children (and even adults), here are some books that explore what it really means to flee your home and have to start your life over. He reflects impeccable maturity despite of his tender age when it is necessary but his story will keep the readers rooted till the very end.