Refugee (2017)
Refugee is a 2017 historical fiction book written by Alan Gratz.
Three children, three decades, one word that governs everything: leave. Josef boards a ship out of Nazi Germany in the 1930s with his family and papers that may not save them. Isabel pushes off the Cuban coast on a homemade raft in 1994. Mahmoud slips out of a shattered Syrian city with his parents and younger siblings. Alan Gratz braids their journeys together across water, border, and checkpoint, cutting between the three as each family gambles everything on the crossing. Written for younger readers, it never softens what the road costs.
Quick answers
What is Refugee about?
Three children, three decades, one word that governs everything: leave. Josef boards a ship out of Nazi Germany in the 1930s with his family and papers that may not save them. Isabel pushes off the Cuban coast on a homemade raft in 1994. Mahmoud slips out of a shattered Syrian city with his parents and younger siblings. Alan Gratz braids their journeys together across water, border, and checkpoint, cutting between the three as each family gambles everything on the crossing. Written for younger readers, it never softens what the road costs.
When was Refugee published?
Refugee was published in 2017.
Who made Refugee?
Refugee was written by Alan Gratz.
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A few thoughts on Refugee
If the interlaced survival stories land, watch We Were the Lucky Ones, which follows one Jewish family scattered across continents during the Second World War and keeps the same close, human focus on people trying to reach each other. It trades Alan Gratz's braided structure for a single family, but the ache of separation and the will to cross carry straight over.
Middle-grade historical fiction about children fleeing war
Refugee braids three young escapes across three eras, each family gambling everything on a crossing. These stories put kids at the center of history the same way, sending young narrators through danger and displacement in prose pitched for younger readers but unflinching about the stakes.
Films and shows about escaping the Nazis by sea and land
Josef's thread in Refugee follows a ship of Jewish families turned away port after port. These dramatize that same desperate flight from Nazi Europe, the boats, the papers and the doors that close, holding onto the human cost the way Gratz does for Josef's family.
Survival stories about ordinary people forced to run
Refugee is about children pushed onto the road with only what they can carry. These follow the same instinct across screen and page, families and lone travelers crossing hostile country toward safety that keeps receding, the journey itself the real ordeal.