Refugee
Alan Gratz (2017)
“Three children. Three crises. Seventy years apart. One devastating truth about what it means to flee everything you know.”
Why This Book 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 reading lists and whole-school reads programs across the country. It arrived in 2017 during an acute political debate about Syrian refugees, and its presence in classrooms generated both adoption and controversy.
Firsts & Innovations
One of the first mainstream middle-grade novels to place a Muslim Syrian child as a full protagonist rather than a supporting figure or symbol
Pioneered the multi-timeline parallel structure in middle-grade historical fiction in a way that was commercially successful at scale
Made the voyage of the MS St. Louis accessible to a generation that had no previous exposure to this historical episode
Cultural Impact
Sparked significant controversy in some school districts when parents objected to its political implications regarding contemporary immigration policy
Became a standard text in units on human rights, social justice, and WWII
Credited by teachers and librarians with producing the most significant student empathy responses of any assigned text in the 2017-2020 period
Has been used in refugee resettlement programs as a tool for building host-community empathy
The novel's author's note is frequently taught separately as an example of research-to-narrative transformation
Banned & Challenged
Challenged and banned in multiple school districts, primarily in conservative areas, for its political implications regarding refugee and immigration policy, its depiction of anti-Semitic violence, and its portrayal of Muslim characters. Some objections were to the novel's implicit argument that the United States has a moral obligation to admit refugees — others objected to its historical criticism of US policy during the St. Louis episode.