The Journey

 
The Journey

by Francesca Sanna

Flying Eye Books

2016

 

 

The Journey is an illustrated children's book about a family of Muslim refugees seeking asylum in Europe, published by Flying Eye Books, who also published The Comet. Sanna based the narrative on interviews she conducted with real refugees, and the back cover has an endorsement from Amnesty International.

 

The Journey is narrated in the first person by one of the nameless child characters. Their family is happy and vacations at the beach. Then a war comes, they no longer take vacations, and their father dies. Their mother decides to move them to a peaceful country to the north, which she promises will have forests and mountains and animals like from a book of fairy tales. 

 
They pack up their house and leave at night. Initially the mother drives, but then they get rides, and begin giving up their belongings. At the border is a wall, and guards who turn them away and nearly arrest them, twice. A final smuggler gets them across the border with little more than the clothes on their backs. They board an overcrowded boat and cross a sea, and arrive in a new place, hoping for a new life, and peace.
 

Sanna's art is effective at communicating a child's emotions. The war is a black cloud with huge arms that smash things and grasp through the family's windows and doors. The idea of Europe overflows from a book. The border guards are giants. The ocean is an enigmatic and vaguely frightening woman.

 
I think this would be a good book for refugee children, and perhaps for any kid who wonders where refugees come from or what their migration experience is like. The family's religion is implied only through the art, as is, really their destination. I understood the specifics, but a kid might see a more universal tale. It's a troubling book because it deals with a troubling topic. It could probably be used both to answer some questions, or to start a conversation with someone who never knew to ask.