LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
Selected by a distinguished independent panel of experts including our editorial expert, Julia Eccleshare, for Diverse Voices - 50 of the best Children's Books celebrating cultural diversity in the UK.
Haunting, tragic and distressing in what it reveals about man’s inhumanity to man, Refugee Boy is also an affirming story of one boy’s amazing courage and several other individual’s goodness and integrity. Caught up in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Alem’s life is in danger at home. To make sure he survives, Alem’s father brings him to Britain and abandons him to seek asylum and find a new and better life. The story of how Alem retains his dignity and independence in the most challenging of circumstances while also adapting to the demands of a new life is strongly told.
Perfect for Reluctant Readers as well as keen readers. To view other titles we think are suitable for reluctant readers please click here.
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About
Refugee Boy Synopsis
An eye for an eye. It's very simple. You choose your homeland like a hyena picking and choosing where he steals his next meal from. Scavenger.
Yes you grovel to the feet of Mengistu and when his people spit at you and kick you from the bowl you scuttle across the border. Scavenger.
As a violent civil war rages back home in Ethiopia, teenager Alem and his father are in a bed and breakfast in Berkshire. It's his best holiday ever. The next morning his father is gone and has left a note explaining that he and his mother want to protect Alem from the war. This strange grey country of England is now his home.
On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, Alem lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father. Then he meets car-obsessed Mustapha, the lovely 'out-of-your-league' Ruth and dangerous Sweeney - three unexpected allies who spur him on in his fight to be seen as more than just the Refugee Boy.
Lemn Sissay's remarkable stage adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah's bestselling novel is published here in the Methuen Drama Student Edition series, featuring commentary & notes by Professor Lynette Goddard (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) that help the student unpack the play's themes, language, structure and production history to date.
This stage adaptation of Refugee Boy is a newly added text to Edexcel's English Literature GCSE. The first-ever scholarly edition of this play, which is highly topical in its look at migration, the rights of refugees, community, 'Britishness' and personal identity.
A Preview of Refugee Boy is available here.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781350171916 |
| Publication date: |
27th January 2022 |
| Author: |
Benjamin Zephaniah |
| Publisher: |
Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
98 pages |
| Series: |
Methuen Drama Student Editions |
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Press Reviews
Benjamin Zephaniah Press Reviews
'[The] story of a young Ethiopian boy, whose parents abandon him in London to save his life.' - Katy Guest, literary editor for The Independent on Sunday
Author
About Benjamin Zephaniah
Poet, novelist and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah (1958-2023) grew up in Jamaica and the Handsworth district of Birmingham, England, leaving school at 14. He moved to London in 1979 and published his first poetry collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980.
Benjamin Zephaniah is an internationally renowned performance poet and acclaimed author of bestselling YA novels: Face, Gangsta Rap, Teacher's Dead, Refugee Boy and Terror Kid.
He was a Writer in Residence at the Africa Arts Collective in Liverpool and Creative Artist in Residence at Cambridge University, and was a candidate for the post of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate in Arts and Humanities from the University of North London (1998), was made a Doctor of Letters by the University of Central England (1999).
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