The following unabridged reviews are made available under license from their respective rights holders and publishers. Reviews may be used for educational purposes consistent with the fair use doctrine in your jurisdiction, and may not be reproduced or repurposed without permission from the rights holders.

Note: This section may include reviews for related titles (e.g., same author, series, or related edition).

From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

While Aleppo has been devastated by the Syrian civil war, life for Sami in Damascus has been largely untouched by the violence. That changes when a mall in the city center is blown up while his mother and little sister Sara are there, picking up Sami’s soccer shoes. Although neither are badly physically injured, Sara stops speaking, and Sami’s parents decide their family must flee Syria. After secret planning and an unpredictable journey, Sami’s family seeks asylum in England, staying at a refugee shelter before being released to a sponsor, his father’s friend Muhammad. Sami feels guilty about Sara’s silence; angry at Muhammad’s wife and son, who clearly resent their family’s presence in their home; and longing for his best friend, Joseph. He’s also worried about his grandma, who stayed in Damascus, and about Aadam, a teenage refugee they met before making the treacherous journey by boat to Greece. Sami’s coping mechanism for the guilt and unhappiness is to engage in magical thinking about returning to Damascus on his own. A novel about one Syrian Muslim family’s refugee journey is steeped in intense feelings and vivid details. The story makes clear their path is smoother at times because Sami’s father is a doctor and the family has economic resources that help them escape, but it’s still a steep and uncertain arc they are traveling in a novel that ends with them poised at a point of promise. (Ages 9-13)

CCBC Choices 2022 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2022. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from April 26, 2021
Sami, 13, has grown up an average middle-class Syrian boy, playing video games and hanging out with his best friend Joseph. Though much of the country has been torn apart by civil war, Damascus, Sami's home, has remained intact thus far. That changes, however, with terrifying news: the shopping center has been bombed-with Sami's mother and sister Sara inside. Though they survive the blast, the family decides to seek refugee status in England, realizing how precarious their situation in Syria has become. Dassu's accessible debut follows Sami and his family along their sweeping journey from Syria, through Turkey and Greece, to Manchester in the U.K. There, Sami struggles with past guilt amid the new environment, away from the luxuries of the home he was forced to leave behind. The novel explores Sami's preference for his Syrian life over his U.K. one, in which he must share a room with a bullying cousin and believes that his professional parents are "losing their self-respect"; Dassu presents a well-balanced portrayal of the range of attitudes a refugee might encounter. Though the fast-paced plot occasionally skips over narrative details, strongly evoked themes of family, homesickness, and friendship cohere in this resonant portrait of one teen's contemporary refugee experience. Back matter includes a glossary and author's note. Ages 9â€"14. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary.