The Bone Sparrow
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
2017 ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children
Winner, Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2017
CBCA Honour Book 2017 - Older Readers
Shortlisted for the 2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards
Shortlisted for the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards
Shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
Shortlisted for The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2016
Shortlisted for the Gold Inky Award 2017
Shortlisted for the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal
Carnegie Medal Amnesty CILIP Honour Book 2017
IBBY Australia Honour Book 2018
'A special book.' - Morris Gleitzman
Sometimes, at night, the dirt outside turns into a beautiful ocean. As red as the sun and as deep as the sky. I lie in my bed, Queeny's feet pushing up against my cheek, and listen to the waves lapping at the tent.
Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention centre after his mother fled the violence of a distant homeland, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. But as he grows, his imagination gets bigger too, until it is bursting at the limits of his world. The Night Sea brings him gifts, the faraway whales sing to him, and the birds tell their stories.
The most vivid story of all, however, is the one that arrives one night in the form of Jimmie, a scruffy, impatient girl who appears from the other side of the wires, and brings a notebook written by the mother she lost. Unable to read it, she relies on Subhi to unravel her own family's love songs and tragedies.
Subhi and Jimmie might both find a way to freedom, as their tales unfold. But not until each of them has been braver than ever before.
'a tragic, beautifully crafted and wonderful book' - The Independent
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Subhi hangs on his mother's stories of her life in Burma as a Rohingya, a persecuted ethnic Muslim minority. Subhi's Ma (mother) and his older sister were among the Rohingya exiled from their homeland and relegated to a detention center in Australia, where he was born. The 10-year-old's imagination helps him survive in a refugee camp ruled by abusive guards as he watches Ma sink into catatonia and waits in vain for the arrival of his father, an outspoken poet. Australian author Fraillon crafts a harrowing vision of life in the detention center (shoes are rarities, rats and mold are rampant, children race lice for fun), yet Subhi finds solace in sensitively portrayed friendships with a rebellious older boy, a compassionate guard, and an intrepid girl named Jimmie who sneaks into the camp to hear Subhi read stories her late mother recorded in a notebook; though most of the story is told from Subhi's first-person perspective, several third-person chapters focus on Jimmie's life outside the camp. While addressing themes of loss, desperation, and injustice in an all-too-relevant setting, Fraillon's resonant novel underscores the healing power of story. Ages 9 12.
