STELLAR STORIES: Other Words for Home

Other Words for Home
By Jasmine Warga
Balzer + Bray, 2019. Fiction.

Jude first begins to realize that things in her home nation of Syria are really changing when her older brother leaves home and begins to protest for a democratic Syria free from the rules of President Assad. Meanwhile, her father wants stability even if that means swearing allegiance to an oppressive leader. When the violence comes close to Jude's hometown, she and her mother know it is time to leave and they flee to America where Jude's uncle lives with his wife and daughter. Jude's life in America isn't immediately easy -- her English (the best in her school back home) is rusty, her cousin thinks she's weird, and her brother is now missing in a war zone. But through her strength and the support of her family, Jude begins to feel comfortable having two homes.

Jude's experience, told in verse, is a thoughtful and realistic view of the experience many immigrants (Syrian or otherwise) face when they come to America. Jude, like other refugee children, faces a hard adjustment in a school where she struggles to speak the language and fit in with kids who look nothing like her and in a community that is threatened by ugly Islamophobia. Ultimately though, Jude's story is filled with determination and hope.

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