Refugee

Historical fiction

First published: 2017
Print length: 338 pages2017

Description

Three young people flee violence with their families in different eras. Josef boards a ship from Nazi Germany as the danger of concentration camps grows. In 1990s Cuba, Isabel takes to the sea on a raft bound for the United States amid hunger and unrest. Decades later, a missile destroys Mahmoud’s home in Syria, beginning his family’s difficult journey toward Europe. Their alternating stories confront bombing, drowning, betrayal, hostile borders, and the uncertainty of whether any country will admit them. By placing these journeys beside one another, Refugee shows how quickly ordinary childhood can become a struggle for survival and how courage, family responsibility, and hope persist across distinct histories of displacement.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Direct

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Dark · Hopeful · Suspenseful · Tense

Structure

Braided · Multiple timelines

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

5 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

BelongingFamilyMigration and displacementOppressionSurvivalWar

About Alan Gratz

Alan Gratz writes young adult novels that place young people inside wars, displacement, terrorism, and other forms of political violence. His work is typically direct and strongly plotted, using adventure and thriller structures to make large historical events legible at the scale of individual choices. He often builds a story from contrasting perspectives or linked periods: Refugee follows three families escaping danger in Nazi Germany, 1990s Cuba, and Syria, while Ground Zero connects a boy trapped in the World Trade Center on September 11 with a girl growing up amid war in Afghanistan. Elsewhere, Prisoner B-3087, Projekt 1065, and Grenade approach the Second World War through sharply different forms of youthful exposure, from persecution and espionage to combat. Across these novels, Gratz returns to children pressed into adult crises, balancing urgent action with attention to fear, loyalty, family, and moral judgment. That combination of accessible pacing and carefully chosen viewpoints gives his historical fiction its characteristic reach.

Prisoner B-3087 Apple Books

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Language: English
ISBN: 9780545880831

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