Homes - Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Will)

This is a refugee story capturing the life of a family from their home in Iraq, their move to Syria, and their eventual escape to Canada. The story is told from the perspective of a young boy (Bakr), who told the story to his English teacher(Yeung) in Edmonton.

This is a heart-breaking story, but also manages to say a lot about familial love and how communities deal with dangerous and difficult situations.

Reading the story from the perspective of the young boy is what makes this book so worth it, because he never really talks about or analyzes the greater conflict as a whole - instead, everything is from his viewpoint in his little world. He never talks about who exactly is fighting who in Syria, or who's bad and who's good - he just wants to play soccer and video games with his cousins, get through school, and stay as far away as possible from anyone with a gun.

Well worth the read, especially for Canadians given that we have so many Syrian refugees in Canada who lived out similar stories.