Refugee
By: Alan Gratz / Narrated By: Michael Goldstrom, Kyla Garcia, Assaf Cohen
Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
Definitely a MUST if you wanna raise awareness in kids… Or, heck, in adults
This is my first Alan Gratz audiobook tho’ I’ve read some of his others in print. Plus, it was my pick for our little audiobook club so, though I had faith in Gratz’s stories as always tackling emotional and intense issues, I was all worried that perhaps this one, Refugee, wouldn’t be as hard-hitting as some of his other works. And Plus Again, I’m always a spaz, worried what my mom and sister would think cuz we all take it as a personal failure if our book choices bomb.
Phew! No need to shoot myself here as Refugee is the interweaving stories of three kids, in different eras, in different countries who have found themselves as endangered in their own much-loved homes, in their very own countries.
The stories are of Josef, a boy soon to be a man when his Bar Mitzvah finally rolls around in 1930s Germany; of Isabel, a young girl in Fidel Castro’s 1994 Havana Cuba; of Mahmoud, a young man during the chaos of current (2015) Aleppo, Syria. Josef’s father is taken early and sent to a concentration camp for practicing law as a Jew. Isabel’s father joins a riot after mobs protest the lack of goods; he throws a bottle at Castro’s police, and it’s obvious that he’ll be imprisoned and has to leave the country. Mahmoud has lived in war-torn Aleppo and knows about trying to be invisible and make do.
Soon, however, Josef and his family try to leave Germany and embark on a ship, hoping to land in Cuba. Isabel convinces her family that not just her father, but her whole family, should join the neighbors on their raft to try to get to the US. And Mahmoud’s family is bombed out with nowhere to turn except perhaps to Germany, by way of Turkey. The journeys of each of our heroes are perilous, and each character faces unsavory people, swindlers, criminals, camps, and fear and prejudice. There are scenes with Nazi Youth catching Josef as he boldly decides he will NOT wear his Star of David; scenes with sharks swimming and swirling on the outside of the raft; scenes of Mahmoud having to make an immediate and heartbreaking decision where the wrong choice means death, but the right choice means utter emotional devastation.
I liked how each character had to face so much, how each of their family members responded in such different ways (Mahmoud’s father cracking jokes until he absolutely doesn’t have the heart to/Mahmoud’s little brother going through just a few crises too many and shutting down). And I liked how each of them, Josef, Isabel, Mahmoud had to make sacrifices. All in the desperate hope to get somewhere safe. These are characters who hadn’t the option to stay in their countries, and I applaud author Gratz for tackling these issues, for giving these refugees names and faces and heartbreaking stories, especially here in these days fraught with immigration upheavals and fears and such hatred and mistrust and oh such uninformed/uncaring prejudice.
Each character is voiced by their own narrator, each being veterans of the craft. Kyla Garcia I was familiar with, and NATurally the seasoned performer had no problem with conveying Isabel’s story. Michael Goldstrum was new to me, but when Josef’s surviving family has to run yet again in overrun France, Goldstrum carries a heavy load by conveying the fear and Josef’s ultimate decision. Assaf Cohen, however, was the real revelation as he reeeeally brought Mahmoud’s horror show journey to life. We’ve been looking away from the devastation in Syria for years now, so Cohen did well with smacking us upside the head with his intense portrayal of Mahmoud and his family.
When all was said and done, our little club liked it quite a bit, and we appreciated the struggles the people have gone through in the name of safety, in the name of love for one’s family.
And by the end? Tears?
Oh, my…. yessss….
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