Refugee
Alan Gratz (2017)
“Three children. Three crises. Seventy years apart. One devastating truth about what it means to flee everything you know.”
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Refugee
Alan Gratz (2017) · 338pages · Contemporary / Historical Fiction
Summary
Three children from different eras and continents — Josef fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939, Isabel escaping Cuba in 1994, and Mahmoud running from war-torn Syria in 2015 — make desperate journeys by sea seeking refuge. Their stories unfold in parallel, alternating chapters, until they converge in a shocking and devastating final act that reveals how the same human tragedy repeats across generations.
Why It Matters
Refugee was an immediate commercial and critical success — unusual for a novel dealing with this subject matter at the middle-grade level. It appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks and became one of the most-assigned books in American middle schools, appearing on summer...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: Accessible and immediate — present tense, close third-person, age-appropriate vocabulary with moments of precise historical and geographical specificity
Narrator: Close third-person present tense for all three children — Gratz maintains consistent technical apparatus while differ...
Figurative Language: Moderate and purposeful
Historical Context
Three eras: 1939 Nazi Germany / 1994 Cuba / 2015 Syria: The three eras were not chosen arbitrarily — each represents a distinct chapter in the history of the Western world's response to refugee crises, and each involves a child of approximately the same...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- Gratz alternates chapters between three timelines without ever using chapter titles to tell you which child you're following. You have to figure it out from context. Why do you think he made this choice? How does it affect the reading experience?
- Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud each have a different survival strategy. What is each child's strategy, and how does their strategy reflect their specific situation and personality?
- Mahmoud says his goal is to 'be a ghost.' By the end of the novel, he has changed this. What happened to change his mind, and was the change worth the cost?
- The United States turned away the MS St. Louis in 1939. In 2015, many European countries closed their borders to Syrian refugees. What do these two moments have in common, and what does Gratz want us to understand from the comparison?
- Isabel's trumpet is lost during the crossing, but Gratz writes that she still carries the music 'inside her.' What does this mean? Can an object that's gone still be part of who you are?
Notable Quotes
“Josef had learned to keep his head down, be invisible. Don't attract attention. Don't stand out.”
“When the music stopped, the silence was worse than anything.”
“Be a ghost. Walk through walls. Disappear.”
Why Read This
Because the news has been telling you that refugees are a problem to be solved, and this novel will make you feel — not think, feel — that they are people. It will also make you ask why the same crisis keeps happening, why the same countries keep ...