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Books for World Refugee Day
Everyone has the right to seek safety. In honour of World Refugee Day, we are sharing a selection of books from these authors, about their stories of strength and resilience.
All Books in this Collection
Showing 1–16 of 17 results
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Chasing Zebras
$22.00When Margaret Nowaczyk immigrated to Canada with her family from Poland she was determined to be Canadian, whatever that meant, and she was equally determined to be a doctor. Arriving as a teen with an English vocabulary deeply influenced by the few English books she had, including Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil, Margaret made her way through medical school at the University of Toronto, followed by residencies at Toronto’s SickKids until she settled in at McMaster University Hospital as a clinical geneticist. From leaving Communist Poland to enduring the demands of medical school, through living with a long undiagnosed mental illness to discovering the fascinating field of genetics, plunging into the pressures of prenatal diagnosis and finally finding the tools of writing and of narrative medicine, Margaret shares a journey that is both inspiring and harrowing. This is a story of constant effort, of growth, of tragedy and of triumph, and most of all, of the importance of openness. In the end, Dr. Nowaczyk invites us all to see that “life is precious and fragile and wondrous and full of mistakes.” And to keep trying.
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Fire Walkers
$24.95It’s 1974, a coup has just installed a repressive military regime in Ethiopia. A family of five undertakes to escape from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, cross the brutal Danakil Desert on foot. Beth Gebreyohannes, a young girl at the time, describes that grim, perilous journey. Betrayed by guides and robbed by bandits, lost in the desert without food or water, they are rescued finally by a trading caravan of nomadic Afar tribesmen, complete strangers who feed and guide them on to Djibouti. In this port city, other strangers house them until-more than a year after they left-they receive their visas for Canada.
This is a story at once gripping and moving, about the endurance and courage of a family escaping to freedom against all odds; a story everyone would acknowledge as a portrait of our times, when so many everywhere run to seek safe havens.
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Ghost’s Journey
$21.99When Indonesia becomes a dangerous place for the LGBTQ+ community, Ghost and her family are forced to leave their home and escape to freedom in Canada.Ghost’s Journey: A Reugee Story is inspired by the true story of two gay refugees, Rainer and Eka, and written from the perspective of their cat Ghost, with illustrations created from Rainer’s photographs. Written by award-winning author, Robin Stevenson, Ghost’s Journey is a perfect fit to teach young audiences about family diversity, human rights, and social justice. Shortlisted for the 2021 Silver Birch Express Award and the 2021 Rocky Mountain Book Award.Teacher resources available on publisher website: rebelmountainpress.com/ghosts-journey-teacher-resources
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Homes
$19.952019 Canada Reads Audience Choice Winner and Finalist for the 2018 Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction and the Shaugnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
In 2010, the al Rabeeah family left their home in Iraq in hope of a safer life. They moved to Homs, in Syria – just before the Syrian civil war broke out.
Abu Bakr, one of eight children, was ten years old when the violence began on the streets around him: car bombings, attacks on his mosque and school, firebombs late at night. Homes tells of the strange juxtapositions of growing up in a war zone: horrific, unimaginable events punctuated by normalcy – soccer, cousins, video games, friends.
Homes is the remarkable true story of how a young boy emerged from a war zone – and found safety in Canada – with a passion for sharing his story and telling the world what is truly happening in Syria. As told to her by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah, writer Winnie Yeung has crafted a heartbreaking, hopeful, and urgently necessary book that provides a window into understanding Syria.
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Like Joyful Tears
$18.95In Like Joyful Tears, readers see first-hand the trauma and havoc wreaked by civil war. Victoria Deng of southern Sudan is sixteen when her school is attacked by northern soldiers and everyone but herself and her sister Mary are massacred. The girls are soon rescued by southern rebel soldiers, who are escorting hundreds of children on the harrowing and dangerous cross-desert journey to a refugee camp. Twenty years later in Vancouver, Canada, restless UBC student Abena Walker, looking to do something meaningful and rediscover her parents’ original home of Africa, travels to Ukiwa Refugee Camp in Kenya as a teacher. While she struggles to comprehend the bleak situation of the thousands of refugees in the camp and whether or not she is making a difference, Abena meets and befriends Victoria and her two children who are now living in the camp. Unwilling to let the camp rules stop her from doing what is right, Abena and her friend Frank McClune – jaded from two decades of work in Africa but huge of heart – decide to break all the rules to try and free Victoria and her children and help them immigrate to North America. Although a work of fiction, Like Joyful Tears is based on the author’s decade of work in the refugee community.
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Reaching Mithymna
$22.95FINALIST FOR THE 2020 HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • A New York Times New & Noteworthy Book • A CBC Best Nonfiction Book of 2020 • A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book for 2020
“Combining his poetic sensibilities and storytelling skills with a documentarian’s eye, [Heighton] has created a wrenching narrative.”—2020 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury
In the fall of 2015, Steven Heighton made an overnight decision to travel to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and enlist as a volunteer. He arrived on the isle of Lesvos with a duffel bag and a dubious grasp of Greek, his mother’s native tongue, and worked on the landing beaches and in OXY-—a jerrybuilt, ad hoc transit camp providing simple meals, dry clothes, and a brief rest to refugees after their crossing from Turkey. In a town deserted by the tourists that had been its lifeblood, Heighton-—alongside the exhausted locals and under-equipped international aid workers—-found himself thrown into emergency roles for which he was woefully unqualified.
From the brief reprieves of volunteer-refugee soccer matches to the riots of Camp Moria, Reaching Mithymna is a firsthand account of the crisis and an engaged exploration of the borders that divide us and the ties that bind.
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Somewhere
$25.00An inspiring and timely collection of stories about migration, written from twenty women’s perspectives.
Somewhere is an inspiring collection of stories about migration. Written from twenty women’s perspectives, it brings a refreshing and uniting voice to this compelling and trending topic. More people are likely to be migrating now than at any other time in history, and this is set to increase as climate change and political unrest pushes even more people to relocate. The implications of migration, especially for women, are often unknown, unheard, unspoken. From the fleeing refugee to the political and economic migrant, a broad range of migration by people of many cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs is shared in this book. Identity, belonging, assimilation and alienation are some of the key topics in this sometimes sad but also joyful book. Treasures of wisdom and heartfelt honesty are found in the stories. The book will give the reader hope, encouragement, or insight into a globally relevant subject on a personal level rather than through distant, abstract news stories. Somewhere encourages open-mindedness and is filled with stories that will likely have a strong impact on the reader.
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Suitcase/Adrenaline
$15.95These two powerful plays by Ahmad Meree examine the effects of war and the refugee experience. Suitcase considers the lives of refugees and the spaces they inhabit. The play urges the audience to reassess the significance of their possessions, the relationships they value, and all of the things they have left behind. Adrenaline follows Jaber, a refugee getting ready to celebrate his first New Year’s Eve in Canada after leaving his war-torn home in Syria. Using objects he has around the house, Jaber unpacks memories of war, and tries to understand the price he has had to pay for his safety in Canada.
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The Clothesline Swing
$21.95The Clothesline Swing is a journey through the troublesome aftermath of the Arab Spring. A former Syrian refugee himself, Ramadan unveils an enthralling tale of courage that weaves through the mountains of Syria, the valleys of Lebanon, the encircling seas of Turkey, the heat of Egypt and finally, the hope of a new home in Canada.
Inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, The Clothesline Swing tells the epic story of two lovers anchored to the memory of a dying Syria. One is a Hakawati, a storyteller, keeping life in forward motion by relaying remembered fables to his dying partner. Each night he weaves stories of his childhood in Damascus, of the cruelty he has endured for his sexuality, of leaving home, of war, of his fated meeting with his lover. Meanwhile Death himself, in his dark cloak, shares the house with the two men, eavesdropping on their secrets as he awaits their final undoing.
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The Sadness of Geography
$19.99The harrowing journey of a teenage refugee who never gave up on his dream of seeing his family again.
Born to a wealthy family in northern Sri Lanka, Logathasan Tharmathurai and his family lost everything during the long and brutal Sri Lankan Civil War.
In January 1985, at the age of eighteen, he left his home in a desperate bid to build a new life for himself and his family abroad after a deeply traumatic encounter with a group of Sinhalese soldiers. As his terrifying and often astonishing journey unfolds, he finds himself in a refugee camp, being smuggled across international borders, living with drug dealers, and imprisoned.
The Sadness of Geography is a moving story of innocence lost, the persecution of an entire people, and the universal quest for a better life.
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Tongues
$25.00In this collection of deeply personal essays, twenty-six writers explore their connection with language, accents, and vocabularies, and contend with the ways these can be used as both bridge and weapon. Some explore the way power and privilege affect language learning, especially the shame and exclusion often felt by non-native English speakers in a white, settler, colonial nation. Some confront the pain of losing a mother tongue or an ancestral language along with the loss of community and highlight the empowerment that comes with reclamation. Others celebrate the joys of learning a new language and the power of connection. All underscore how language can offer both transformation and collective healing.
Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language is a vital anthology that opens a compelling dialogue about language diversity and probes the importance of language in our identity and the ways in which it shapes us.
With contributions by: Kamal Al-Solaylee, Jenny Heijun Wills, Karen McBride, Melissa Bull, Leonarda Carranza, Adam Pottle, Kai Cheng Thom, Sigal Samuel, Rebecca Fisseha, Hege Anita Jakobsen Lepri, Logan Broeckaert, Taslim Jaffer, Ashley Hynd, Jagtar Kaur Atwal, Téa Mutonji, Rowan McCandless, Sahar Golshan, Camila Justino, Amanda Leduc, Ayelet Tsabari, Carrianne Leung, Janet Hong, Danny Ramadan, Sadiqa de Meijer, Jónína Kirton, and Eufemia Fantetti.
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Travesia
$21.95A poignant bilingual YA graphic novel about a teenage girl’s harrowing experience crossing the Mexico-US border.
This compelling young adult graphic memoir, based on real events, tells the story of Gricelda, a fifteen-year-old Mexican girl who attempts to cross the border into America with her mother and younger brother in search of a better life. Their treacherous journey, filled with both heartbreak and hope, begins in Tijuana, where they are transported from house to house by strangers. Here they meet the mysterious smuggler el Guero, who promises to lead the young family through the mountains and the scorching heat of the desert and beyond. Can he prove himself by keeping them safe during the crossing? Will America be the country of dreams like they imagined? Or will adjusting to their new life in California be another type of struggle for Gricelda and her family?
With captivating illustrations inspired by the graffiti and stencil art prevalent during the 2006 political uprising in Oaxaca, as well as local textiles and embroidery, Travesia is Gricelda’s first-person account, derived from interviews with author Michelle Gerster and told in both English and Spanish, of crossing the Mexico-US border. Timely and relevant, Travesia is a vibrant and powerful testament to the desperation and resilience of millions of migrating people who endure the pain of leaving their old lives behind to embark on the perilous journey across borders in search of a new life.
Royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Centro Legal de la Raza, a legal services agency protecting and advancing the rights of low-income, immigrant, Black, and Latinx communities through bilingual legal representation, education, and advocacy.
Ages 12 and up.
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Veiled Sun, The
$20.00The Veiled Sun is a Holocaust memoir written in a highly literate style. Paul Schaffer spent his teenage years on the run from the Nazis in Austria, Belgium and France, and then in Auschwitz from 1942 to 1945. He survived to become a successful industrialist who was honoured by the government of France. Paul Schaffer’s story provides insights into a middle-class Jewish childhood in pre-war Vienna, attitudes to Jewish refugees in Vichy France, arrest and detention in France, survival in Auschwitz, and the return to post-war France to face the challenges of re-integration into French society.
Published with the support of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
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Waiting for Stalin to Die
$20.00Fleeing Stalin’s advance into Lithuania, shaken by communism and war, four refugees end up in Toronto in 1949. Vytas, a young doctor who gets into medical school by saving a child’s life, is haunted by a lost love. Maryte, a seamstress whose affair with a German officer saved her half-witted brother, struggles to take care of him. Justine, a concert pianist raped during the war, strives to regain her ability to make music. Father Geras, an illegitimate child steered into the priesthood by family, finds purpose in guiding his exiled people. Trying to resume normal lives, longing for their country’s freedom, they wait to go home.
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Wherever I Find Myself
$24.95An anthology of Canadian immigrant women and their experiences of being caught between the world of their past and the world of their future. In this third anthology in the Canadian women series by Caitlin Press, Canadian immigrant women from a variety of ethnicities and intersecting identities share their diverse and personal stories.
A woman takes on the complex and often baffling nuances of the English language, a Ugandan refugee and her family settle in Canada only to find their father is forever changed, a Portuguese woman recalls her fear when her parents are forced to leave her and her sister alone in a dangerous situation, and a woman from Thailand re-discovers her history and culture in spite of being told that “There was no room for the past in the bright worlds to come.” – these are portraits of women attempting to navigate unfamiliar landscapes, and their desire to be accepted despite differences in accent, sexuality, skin colour, or taste in food. Whether home is a place they long to return, desire to create, or hope to preserve in the language of their families, each writer reveals how pieces of their history have brought them closer to, or farther from the feeling of belonging.
In Wherever I Find Myself, edited by Miriam Matejova, the authors are both critical and grateful for being able to call Canada home. Together their stories present a mosaic of emotions and worldviews that underline the plurality of immigrant experiences for women.
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You Can’t Stay Here
$18.95Jasmina Odor’s rich writing invites us to step into the shoes of Croatian immigrants living in Canada, and the Croatian soldiers and families who remain behind. Each passionate story in this collection varies in perspective, and yet all share Odor’s sensual writing and undertones of the trauma of life during wartime. Through the stories in You Can’t Stay Here, we are transported to the warm Adriatic Sea, rented rooms, wartime frontlines, and Canadian suburbia. We fall in love with those conflicted in their broken families, as well as those immigrants, travellers, and refugees who succeed in their difficult searches for place and finding a home. In this debut collection, we are left feeling overwhelming care for our fellow humans, neighbours, and countrymen.