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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
‘DAR-1, that’s me. I was the first baby ever born here.’
Meet Subhi. He’s about nine years old, and was born in an Australian detention centre. The boundaries of his physical world are defined by the razor wire, but his imagination knows no bounds. Subhi’s mother, Maá and his sister Noor, nicknamed Queeny are with him. They are Rohingya refugees from Burma.
Subhi describes his life: controlled by guards who oversee everything, where food, water and toilet paper are rationed. He’s known no other life. He tells us that Maá spends much of her time sleeping, that he helps a friend trade items around the centre. He tells us, too, that one of the guards, Harvey, takes the time to remember and use the children’s names. These are things that Subhi tells us, in a matter-of-fact way. Subhi remains optimistic, he has the stories he has heard and those he imagines:
‘I’m listening to the stories of the sea. Do you want me to tell you what I hear?’
He also has the Shakespeare duck to keep him company.
And then, Jimmie enters Subhi’s world. Jimmie lives with her father and brother close to the centre. Jimmie has lost her mother, doesn’t often make it to school, and cannot read. She has a book of stories her mother wrote, and a necklace. Both are important to her. This unlikely friendship is important to both Subhi and Jimmie. She is his confirmation that there is a world outside the razor wire and he is her path back into her mother’s stories.
In the world that Jimmie and Subhi share, there is hope.
‘How can people be so mean to each other when isn’t everyone the same anyway and why can’t anyone work that out?’
This is a beautifully written book. It may be aimed at the 8 to 14-year-old age group, but I’d recommend it to all adults (and politicians) as well. ‘The Bone Sparrow’ won the 2017 ABIA book award for: Book of the Year Older Children (age range 8 to 14 years)
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Meet Subhi. He’s about nine years old, and was born in an Australian detention centre. The boundaries of his physical world are defined by the razor wire, but his imagination knows no bounds. Subhi’s mother, Maá and his sister Noor, nicknamed Queeny are with him. They are Rohingya refugees from Burma.
Subhi describes his life: controlled by guards who oversee everything, where food, water and toilet paper are rationed. He’s known no other life. He tells us that Maá spends much of her time sleeping, that he helps a friend trade items around the centre. He tells us, too, that one of the guards, Harvey, takes the time to remember and use the children’s names. These are things that Subhi tells us, in a matter-of-fact way. Subhi remains optimistic, he has the stories he has heard and those he imagines:
‘I’m listening to the stories of the sea. Do you want me to tell you what I hear?’
He also has the Shakespeare duck to keep him company.
And then, Jimmie enters Subhi’s world. Jimmie lives with her father and brother close to the centre. Jimmie has lost her mother, doesn’t often make it to school, and cannot read. She has a book of stories her mother wrote, and a necklace. Both are important to her. This unlikely friendship is important to both Subhi and Jimmie. She is his confirmation that there is a world outside the razor wire and he is her path back into her mother’s stories.
In the world that Jimmie and Subhi share, there is hope.
‘How can people be so mean to each other when isn’t everyone the same anyway and why can’t anyone work that out?’
This is a beautifully written book. It may be aimed at the 8 to 14-year-old age group, but I’d recommend it to all adults (and politicians) as well. ‘The Bone Sparrow’ won the 2017 ABIA book award for: Book of the Year Older Children (age range 8 to 14 years)
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
The most upsetting thing is that this story is based on true accounts from detention centres across the Western World.
We need to do so much better than this.
We need to do so much better than this.
The Bone Sparrow uses the perspectives of child characters to give readers insight into Australian immigration detention centres. With a touch of magical realism, The Bone Sparrow makes the controversy of Australia’s asylum seekers policy accessible to young readers. While I personally found this book hit-and-miss, it helps to spread awareness of crucial human rights issues.
The detention centre is all that nine-year-old Subhi has ever known. Although he’s surrounded by sickness and squalor, Subhi sees magic in everything. Until now, his world revolved around Maa, his big sister Queeny, and his best friend Eli. Everything changes when he meets Jimmie, the scruffy tomboy who lives on the hill above the centre. In the dead of night, Jimmie breaks into the centre to share her most prized possession with Subhi: the diary her mother kept before she passed away, telling the story of her heirloom bone sparrow necklace. With Subhi’s Maa growing weaker by the day, and Queeny and Eli on a dangerous mission for justice, life in the detention centre will never be the same again.
POINT OF VIEW AND CHARACTERS
The Bone Sparrow offers readers an insider’s AND an outsider’s perspective of the detention centre. While most readers would find Jimmie’s life closer to their own reality, I found Subhi’s world far more intimate and immersive. Hearing his story in first person helps readers to empathise with an experience outside of their personal bubble. His skill in finding beauty in the mundane and his spot-on emotional observations make his inhumane treatment slightly more stomachable. (I would love to know if Subhi’s coping mechanism of blending reality with myth and magic has foundation in his Rohingya cultural background.) However, this delicate balance sometimes tips, resulting in violent scenes much too full-on for junior readers e.g. graphic brutality dealt by the detention centre staff.
While Subhi is an engrossing narrator, I found Jimmie hard to connect with. (Her chapters being third person P.o.V. contributes to this.) I had to suspend my disbelief that a little girl could break into a detention centre – after all, asylum seekers are often incarcerated in less humane conditions than our nation’s criminals. Even if I overlook this unrealistic plot point, I didn’t find Jimmie’s character essential to The Bone Sparrow’s overall message. I know her sense of humour lends comic relief to the story, and her bone sparrow necklace gives Subhi a new symbol of hope. However, Subhi’s character was far stronger, and could have held my interest throughout the plot all by himself.
ISSUES OF ACCURATE REPRESENTATION
I’m aware that some readers may feel that the use of magical realism in The Bone Sparrow sugarcoats the inhumanity of detention centres. However, as a story for young readers told from the perspective of children, magical realism is a viable technique for making difficult content accessible. The most important thing, I feel, is for insightful stories about Australia’s refugee crisis to make their way into the hands of our young people. If this is best achieved through unconventional storytelling, I’m all about it! We need more people discussing Australia’s refugee policy.
After reading this book, I would love to read an Own Voices equivalent. While The Bone Sparrow is founded on research and takes a compassionate standpoint, I would love recommendations for Own Voices books about asylum seekers. (I’m hoping to pick up a copy of They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention when it’s released later this month.)
While imperfect, The Bone Sparrow inspires readers to get educated about current issues.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
The detention centre is all that nine-year-old Subhi has ever known. Although he’s surrounded by sickness and squalor, Subhi sees magic in everything. Until now, his world revolved around Maa, his big sister Queeny, and his best friend Eli. Everything changes when he meets Jimmie, the scruffy tomboy who lives on the hill above the centre. In the dead of night, Jimmie breaks into the centre to share her most prized possession with Subhi: the diary her mother kept before she passed away, telling the story of her heirloom bone sparrow necklace. With Subhi’s Maa growing weaker by the day, and Queeny and Eli on a dangerous mission for justice, life in the detention centre will never be the same again.
POINT OF VIEW AND CHARACTERS
The Bone Sparrow offers readers an insider’s AND an outsider’s perspective of the detention centre. While most readers would find Jimmie’s life closer to their own reality, I found Subhi’s world far more intimate and immersive. Hearing his story in first person helps readers to empathise with an experience outside of their personal bubble. His skill in finding beauty in the mundane and his spot-on emotional observations make his inhumane treatment slightly more stomachable. (I would love to know if Subhi’s coping mechanism of blending reality with myth and magic has foundation in his Rohingya cultural background.) However, this delicate balance sometimes tips, resulting in violent scenes much too full-on for junior readers e.g. graphic brutality dealt by the detention centre staff.
While Subhi is an engrossing narrator, I found Jimmie hard to connect with. (Her chapters being third person P.o.V. contributes to this.) I had to suspend my disbelief that a little girl could break into a detention centre – after all, asylum seekers are often incarcerated in less humane conditions than our nation’s criminals. Even if I overlook this unrealistic plot point, I didn’t find Jimmie’s character essential to The Bone Sparrow’s overall message. I know her sense of humour lends comic relief to the story, and her bone sparrow necklace gives Subhi a new symbol of hope. However, Subhi’s character was far stronger, and could have held my interest throughout the plot all by himself.
ISSUES OF ACCURATE REPRESENTATION
I’m aware that some readers may feel that the use of magical realism in The Bone Sparrow sugarcoats the inhumanity of detention centres. However, as a story for young readers told from the perspective of children, magical realism is a viable technique for making difficult content accessible. The most important thing, I feel, is for insightful stories about Australia’s refugee crisis to make their way into the hands of our young people. If this is best achieved through unconventional storytelling, I’m all about it! We need more people discussing Australia’s refugee policy.
After reading this book, I would love to read an Own Voices equivalent. While The Bone Sparrow is founded on research and takes a compassionate standpoint, I would love recommendations for Own Voices books about asylum seekers. (I’m hoping to pick up a copy of They Cannot Take the Sky: Stories from Detention when it’s released later this month.)
While imperfect, The Bone Sparrow inspires readers to get educated about current issues.
This review can also be found on my blog Paige's Pages.
I had gone into The Bone Sparrow thinking it was based on a true story (I was convinced, in fact, before I started it. But though it’s pure fiction, it really is impactful in its own right. And there are elements of magical realism, which I really loved, and lifted the book out of some of its more harsh moments (especially since it’s middle grade).
Representation:
- Subhi and his family are Rohingya (Muslims from Burma/what’s now Myanmar, people who are - from what I learned in the afterward - the most persecuted people on Earth) --> also, Goodreads summary, really? "his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland"? Really??
Subhi is a Rohingya refugee born in an Australian detention center, where he lives with his mother and sister, and awaits his father’s arrival. Though Subhi has only known what’s inside the fences, at night his father sends gifts from the outside to him through what Subhi calls the “Night Sea”, a storm of magic and whales the size of countries. As long as he has the Night Sea, he has a connection to his father. But when Subhi’s best friend joins a hunger strike, and when a girl intrudes on both the detention center and Subhi’s life, Subhi’s world becomes uncomfortably bigger. He’ll have to confront what’s going on in the center, his fears, and truths he’s buried too deep.
Right away, I was surprised at the beautiful writing; it wasn’t what I expected for a middle grade book (not that all middle grade writing is poor! This is just based on my recent experience with the genre in the past year). Middle grade fiction can still be beautiful and lyrical! Case in point: The Bone Sparrow.
It also tells the story from an interesting PoV: as Subhi's sister and friend are trying to get people to notice what’s going on in the detention center (strikes, contacting newspapers secretly), his own storyline itself doesn’t. The plot is involved with it because Subhi's connected to the people who are, but his plotline is a lot more personal, dealing with family, friends, and how his own life changes directly due to everything else going on inside the center. It’s a very childlike view of something enormous like that -- and it also helps to connect the dots for the book’s most impactful (but most awful) scene. It’s very difficult to say everything without spoiling too much …
While this all was beautiful, I wasn’t as fond of the girl who came to the detention center (and changed everything), Jimmie. Though she presented the story with a lot of magical realism, it was way too tough to suspend my disbelief. Even when they rebuilt the fences around the detention center (like ... even layers of fences), she would be able to find a way through them? Her character wasn’t particularly likable either, and she didn’t really seem to care much about other people. I don’t know … she kind of soured my reading experience.
But! All in all a beautiful middle grade novel, and definitely an important one (especially the bit about how all those guards, no matter how they seem nice, are pretty much all either rotten people or cowards who will do nothing when push comes to shove. Sorry! Had to say it. The book did, too).
Representation:
- Subhi and his family are Rohingya (Muslims from Burma/what’s now Myanmar, people who are - from what I learned in the afterward - the most persecuted people on Earth) --> also, Goodreads summary, really? "his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland"? Really??
Subhi is a Rohingya refugee born in an Australian detention center, where he lives with his mother and sister, and awaits his father’s arrival. Though Subhi has only known what’s inside the fences, at night his father sends gifts from the outside to him through what Subhi calls the “Night Sea”, a storm of magic and whales the size of countries. As long as he has the Night Sea, he has a connection to his father. But when Subhi’s best friend joins a hunger strike, and when a girl intrudes on both the detention center and Subhi’s life, Subhi’s world becomes uncomfortably bigger. He’ll have to confront what’s going on in the center, his fears, and truths he’s buried too deep.
Right away, I was surprised at the beautiful writing; it wasn’t what I expected for a middle grade book (not that all middle grade writing is poor! This is just based on my recent experience with the genre in the past year). Middle grade fiction can still be beautiful and lyrical! Case in point: The Bone Sparrow.
It also tells the story from an interesting PoV: as Subhi's sister and friend are trying to get people to notice what’s going on in the detention center (strikes, contacting newspapers secretly), his own storyline itself doesn’t. The plot is involved with it because Subhi's connected to the people who are, but his plotline is a lot more personal, dealing with family, friends, and how his own life changes directly due to everything else going on inside the center. It’s a very childlike view of something enormous like that -- and it also helps to connect the dots for the book’s most impactful (but most awful) scene. It’s very difficult to say everything without spoiling too much …
While this all was beautiful, I wasn’t as fond of the girl who came to the detention center (and changed everything), Jimmie. Though she presented the story with a lot of magical realism, it was way too tough to suspend my disbelief. Even when they rebuilt the fences around the detention center (like ... even layers of fences), she would be able to find a way through them? Her character wasn’t particularly likable either, and she didn’t really seem to care much about other people. I don’t know … she kind of soured my reading experience.
But! All in all a beautiful middle grade novel, and definitely an important one (especially the bit about how all those guards, no matter how they seem nice, are pretty much all either rotten people or cowards who will do nothing when push comes to shove. Sorry! Had to say it. The book did, too).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Violence
Minor: Pedophilia, Rape
other: disturbing imagery like sewing mouths shut
The story of Subhi and Jimmie, two friends, one from Outside and one inside a refugee detention center. A moving story, illuminating the tragic containment of refugees. And -- a story of stories, and how they hold us together, and perhaps begin to heal us.
adventurous
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No