Literary Safari

Update: Home of the Brave was awarded the 2007 Golden Kite Award for fiction by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).

There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel Arrival. It “may be the most brilliant new book of the year,” according to Rick Margolis of School Library Journal [read his interview with Shaun Tan here.]. And, Elizabeth Bird of Fuse # 8 calls it “the most amazing thing I’ve had the pleasure to read in years” [read her full review here].

I’d have to say I agree. Having been an arrival to this country at age 12, I’ve always been interested in books that explore questions such as “What is home?” “What does it mean to be a stranger in a new land?” and “How does one begin to belong?” Last year, the book that moved me most in this regard was Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions (which comes out in paperback on Sept. 11).

This year, I hadn’t been as excited about a book as I was about The Arrival … until last week when I read Katherine Applegate’s Home of the Brave. I’m always looking for books that I can read in pairs. Here are two books that just seem to want to hold each other’s hands. (Look: Don’t the two covers also go so well together?!)

A novel written in free verse, Home of the Brave is a poignant story about an African war refugee from Sudan named Kek who arrives in the US in the thick of winter in—of all places—Minnesota. His father and brother have been killed, his mother is missing, and he has lost everything about his life that he has ever known. Welcome to America.

Questions

We drive past buildings
everywhere buildings.
Everywhere cars.
Everywhere dead trees.
Who killed all the trees? I ask.

From a dry, hot land where he was part of a nomadic herding tribe, Kek has arrived in a freezing cold country where he must not only learn a new language, but also make friends and cultivate hope for his future. Usually the optimist, even Kek feels distraught upon his arrival at his new home.

I will be OK, I say,
using my best English words.
Soon I will make snowballs.

I make a big grin
so that my new friend Dave
will not worry.
I wonder if he can tell
it is a pretending smile. …

My aunt glances at Ganwar.
You’ll see, Dave.
Kek finds sun
when the sky is dark.
Ah, says Dave,
an optimist.
I look away.
I cannot find any sun today, I think.

In the course of this tender tale, Kek makes friends—with a neighbor living in foster care, with an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and with an aging cow named Gol (which means “family” in his native language). His relationship with Gol (like The Arrival’s main character’s relationship with his dog-like animal companion) is critical to his sense of belonging—and interestingly, it’s one where language is not important.

Sometimes I talk to her softly.
I tell her of my father’s great herd
and how they would graze each day,
walking for miles,
the sun in our bones,
the grass whispering its shy music.
I sing her one of my father’s songs
and listen for an echo of his voice in mine.
She nuzzles me and flicks her ears
and chews her cud.

When I bury my face in Gol’s old hide
I smell hay and dung and life.
She shelters me like a warm wall,
and that is enough for this day.

Through a combination of touching and humorous vignettes (my favorite being the time when he puts his aunt’s dishes in the “washing machine,” i.e. the laundry!), Applegate allows us to accompany Kek on his journey to find “home.” And, isn’t that something we all want to find?

Once in a while a children’s story comes along that carries you away with lyrical language, an authentic voice, and a story that allows you to make connections much larger than its plot. For me, Home of the Brave did all of the above–and somehow, some more.
More:
Read my interview with Katherine Applegate.