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Product Description
Quill & Quire
In her fiction and non-fiction, Deborah Ellis has relentlessly brought to light the ways in which war and social injustice affect young people around the world. She continues to do so in her powerful new novel.
Fifteen-year-old Abdul is a Kurd from Baghdad. Abdul’s father and brothers were killed by an American bomb during the initial phase of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, his mother murdered a few years later by a religious militia. Yet it takes the beating death of his best friend by locals to convince Abdul to flee his country for good.
After a few treacherous months on the road, Abdul reaches the coast of France, where he negotiates passage across the English Channel with a devious smuggler. Aboard the unsteady open boat, Abdul encounters Rosalia, a Roma girl from Eastern Europe who considers her people to be her homeland, and Cheslav, a Russian teen raised in an orphanage whose arrogance masks the humiliations he suffered there and in military school.
A dispute eventually sends the smuggler overboard, and despite deep mutual distrust, the three shipmates are forced to come together to navigate their way to shore. A run-in with some wealthy Americans aboard a cruiser thickens the plot before the teens find temporary harbour in a cave in Cornwall.
Ellis doesn’t shy away from difficult realities. When Rosalia’s uncle sends her to work in a factory in Germany, for instance, she is clearly about to be sold into sexual slavery (a fate she narrowly escapes).
Ellis has structured No Safe Place as an adventure story, and her gritty, lifelike characterizations sometimes chafe against the obvious make-believe (such as when the teens effortlessly commandeer a luxury yacht). But Ellis’s young readers love her because she speaks to them as intelligent, empathetic beings who will soon have agency in the world, and in No Safe Place, this gift is still powerfully evident.
Review
Ellis' young readers love her because she speaks to them as intelligent, empathetic beings who will soon have agency in the world, and in No Safe Place, this gift is still powerfully evident. (Emily Donaldson Quill & Quire 20101124)
What the best literature for young readers can be-simple, elegant language crafted to tell a story as full and rich as life itself. Eminently memorable. (Kirkus Reviews 20100915)
Flashbacks involving the effects of war and poverty on communities and families drive this fast-paced and heart-wrenching narrative, which deals honestly with countless harsh realities. (Publishers Weekly Online )
Flashbacks to each character's personal story are interwoven with the present-tense violence, prejudice, kindness, and community that the young characters find on their journey. (Hazel Rochman Booklist )
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It's the story of Abdul, a Kurdish refugee from Iraq. At fifteen years old he has already lost most of his loved ones to war and terror, and has fled to a small refugee camp in France. His journey has only just begun, however. France is no safehaven, despite the efforts of local volunteers. There are riots among the refugees, who fight over things like food and shelter, both of which are in short supply. The local police force aren't exactly welcoming, and Abdul lives in fear of deportation. But he has enough money to get to England, if he can only find a way.
When he boards a smuggler's ship with four other teens, he is pretty sure things might finally be looking up. The smuggler is downright vile, but he hopes that within a night they'll be across the Channel and he'll be history. But things don't go as planned -- there's a storm, the tiny ship is set off-course, and there's a fight for everyone's lives as the smuggler becomes violent and one of the kids falls sick. Abdul knows he has to find a way to England, though, and the choices he makes have not been -- and will not be -- easy or even pleasant. Slowly, he is able to crack the shells of two of the other teens on board: a Romani girl and a Russian boy, who both have pasts filled with abuse, neglect, and poverty. And the young nephew of the smuggler, an English citizen but as equally outcast as his foreign companions, might manage to keep the group from completely falling apart.
Told partially in flashbacks, this story humanizes the people that we often think of as "other" -- the kids and teens who have been nearly lost to political struggles throughout the world. The kids who are dealing with things that "don't happen to us." Abdul's voice is strong but real -- a great tool not only for telling a story, but for showing us that even in times of struggle kids play guitar, fall in love, make friends. I loved the subtleties of Abdul's story, and his strength and determination are something we can all take to heart. I hope you'll go looking for a copy of NO SAFE PLACE soon. Anyone interested in books on world politics and "real life" teen stories is sure to enjoy it.
they come into contact with are at the least unhelpful and at worse abusive and exploitative. You'll be depressed and sad about the state of the world after reading this and maybe appreciative of your own situation.
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