Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh

I won't go into the details of what's going on at the United States' southern border with the caravan, migrant families and the military as I think the news has provided adequate coverage. I will say though that I worry how we will be viewed in the future when this whole ugly episode is over. With that said, it was by sheer coincidence that I found myself reading Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh  as it shows a small snippet of the refugee crisis in Syria and its effects on two boys- a fourteen-year-old called Ahmed from Syria and a thirteen-year-old American called Max.

When we meet Ahmed, he and his father are in the midst of a treacherous journey with hopes of reaching England or Canada but  it turns out that the universe has other plans. Ahmed ends up in Brussels cold and alone. Desperate and tired, he ends up sheltering in the abandoned cellar of the Howard family, Americans newly relocated to Brussels.

Max, the youngest child in the family is having a difficult time adjusting to Brussels where his father is on a short-term appointment. Max not only is going to repeat a grade, he is also going to work in a French school. Oh the horror! The school and the city quickly become his least favorite places. He does like his house though and it is full of quirkiness and nooks and crannies.

The boys soon meet and help each other learn about culture, language as they share humanity. I was pleased to see the commonalities the boys found and how their ideas about each other and about each other's cultures were both correct and incorrect. I believe that the more people reach out to one another the more we learn about the world and about ourselves in the process.

Author Marsh lives in Belgium and this is shown in her familiarity with the city and the mood of the place during the time of the terror attacks that occurred a few years ago. The book is well written and I would recommend it for ages 10 and above. Some read alikes in which the theme of the immigrant experience is front and central are Erin Entrada Kelly's The Land of Forgotten Girls and Kelly Yang's Front Desk.