Home of the Brave
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4.4 • 135 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author Katherine Applegate presents Home of the Brave, a beautifully wrought middle grade novel about an immigrant's journey from hardship to hope.
Kek comes from Africa. In America he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He's never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter – cold and unkind.
In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she's missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: a girl who is in foster care; an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means "family" in Kek's native language. As Kek awaits word of his mother's fate, he weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.
Home of the Brave is a 2008 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her first stand-alone book, Applegate (the Animorphs series) effectively uses free verse to capture a Sudanese refugee's impressions of America and his slow adjustment. After witnessing the murders of his father and brother, then getting separated from his mother in an African camp, Kek alone believes that his mother has somehow survived. The boy has traveled by "flying boat" to Minnesota in winter to live with relatives who fled earlier. An onslaught of new sensations greets Kek ("This cold is like claws on my skin," he laments), and ordinary sights unexpectedly fill him with longing (a lone cow in a field reminds him of his father's herd; when he looks in his aunt's face, "I see my mother's eyes/ looking back at me"). Prefaced by an African proverb, each section of the book marks a stage in the narrator's assimilation, eloquently conveying how his initial confusion fades as survival skills improve and friendships take root. Kek endures a mixture of failures (he uses the clothes washer to clean dishes) and victories (he lands his first paying job), but one thing remains constant: his ardent desire to learn his mother's fate. Precise, highly accessible language evokes a wide range of emotions and simultaneously tells an initiation story. A memorable inside view of an outsider. Ages 10-14.
Customer Reviews
By unknown
I my teacher read this book to the class I really loved the story I loooove ganwar and kek the are both amazing at the last part my friend started to cry and so did I Great job Katherine Applegate
Brave
I remember reading this book back in middle school, I remember it being such an interesting story. I remember how my mind hadn’t completely rapped my head around the fact racism was something in the world. Due to that, this book, especially in the beginning, had me very confused. I thought it was strange how they treated him, and at some points I thought they were simply jealous of him for talking to the girl. I was awfully wrong. Re-reading it was strange since my younger self had thought of this book so differently. I definitely recommend it, a beautiful read.
Exceptional!
As an adult who volunteered working in an ESL classroom for seven years, this captured the spirit of our students perfectly! The insights into the experience of being a new arrival in this country felt totally authentic. What a wonderful, heart touching story. For anyone of any age!