Home of the Brave Home of the Brave , by Katherine Applegate, Feiwel & Friends Publishers, 2007
Grade level: 4 – 7 ISBN & cost (hardback): 9781439594414; $17.59 ISBN & cost (paperback): 9780312535636; $6.99
Blanket Permission to Reproduce Book Jackets: Used by permission of the Publisher |
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Synopsis:
Applegate uses first-person narrative and free verse to capture a Sudanese refugee's impressions of America and his slow adjustment. Eleven-year-old Kek, who has seen great loss and sadness in his life, comes to live with his aunt and cousin in Minnesota. Prefaced by an African proverb, each section of the book marks a stage in the Kek's assimilation. We readers recognize Kek's initial confusion and how it fades as his survival skills improve and his friendships take root in Minnesota. We also share in Kek's hope that his mother has survived the violence and that he will one day be reunited with her.
General Review:
This story gives us readers a memorable inside view of an outsider coming to America. Katherine Applegate's precise, succinct language brings a wide range of emotions to us. Very few children's and young adult books have dealt with the War in Sudan (Darfur) and its victims. This book has the opportunity to educate our young Kansans about this important issue, and would make a wonderful read-aloud in any middle school classroom.
Themes: War in Sudan (Darfur), African Refugee Camps, Immigration, Survivor guilt, America's image in the world, Family love and loyalty.
Author Information:
“ After Katherine Applegate graduated from college, she spent time waiting tables, typing (badly), watering plants, wandering randomly from one place to the next with her boyfriend, and just generally wasting her time. When she grew sufficiently tired of performing brain-dead minimum-wage work, she decided it was time to become a famous writer. Anyway, a writer. Writing proved to be an ideal career choice, as it involved neither physical exertion nor uncomfortable clothing, and required no social skills.
Ms. Applegate has written more than one hundred books under her own name and a variety of pseudonyms. She has no children, is active in no organizations, and has never been invited to address a joint session of Congress. She does, however, have an evil, foot-biting cat named Dick, and she still enjoys wandering randomly from one place to the next with her boyfriend .” (http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Katherine-Applegate/4063)
Discussion Questions:
- This America is hard work. This is one of Kek's first realizations. Talk with students about why it is so hard even though many people think that Americans have it too easy. How is it especially hard for newcomers to the United States?
- Of all the things I didn't know about America, this is the most amazing: I didn't know there would be so many tribes from all over the world. How could I have imagined the way they walk through world side by side without fear all free to gaze at the same sky with the same hopes? The issue of immigration is a topic that is being debated in our government and throughout our country. Questions to consider are:
• Should we make it easier for people to immigrate to America or enforce stricter quotas?
• Do immigrants add to the economy or take jobs away from American citizens?
• Should illegal immigrants be allowed to stay in America and seek to gain legal status or be sent back to their home countries?
- Hannah takes Kek to the grocery store to buy food for her foster mother.
The grocery store had rows and rows of color, of light, of easy hope. …I stand like a rooted tree firm, my eyes too full of this place, with its answers to prayers on every shelf. I reach out and touch a piece of bright green food I've never seen before. And then I begin to cry.
Discuss with your students Kek's emotional reaction when he sees the shelves lined with food. Do your students take this for granted? How much is too much? Do we need dozens of varieties of breakfast cereal and half dozen kinds of cola?
- Gol is a cow, but Katherine Applegate also uses her as a symbol. Ask your students how Gol represent Kek's past, present, and future.
- What are the most important things that happen to Kek in his first year in America that make him begin to feel at home?
- As a final discussion, talk about why Katherine Applegate titled the novel Home of the Brave.
Activities: ( Reading Standard One, Benchmark Four and Reading Standard Two, Benchmark One)
• The background for Home of the Brave is the civil war that devastated the Sudan on and off from the 1950's to the 1990's and the ethnic war in the Darfur region of Sudan that has raged from 2003 to the present. In order for our students to understand the plight of Kek and the millions of Sudanese people affected by the war, research and then discuss recent history of the Sudan as a whole and the Darfur region in particular.
These websites may be useful in helping American students understand the issue:
• http://hrw.org/doc/?t=africa&c=sudan
• http://www.genocideintervention.net/educate/darfurinfo/
Questions to consider are:
• What is the ethnic makeup of Sudan?
• Why were the wars fought?
• Who was fighting whom?
• What role did the Sudanese government play?
• What happened to the people?
• How did the world community respond?
• What were the consequences?
• Figurative Language: This book contains some examples of idioms; Kek was confused by these.
• P. 60 – “The kids will eat you alive.”
• P. 108 – “You need some time to get your feet wet.”
• P. 115 – “Meantime, keep your eyes open.”
• How many other idioms can your students list? View the website:
http://www.sky-net-eye.com/eng/dictionary/english/idioms/american
• Similes were used by Kek to compare his new experiences and friends to his “real” home in Africa and to his “real” family members. Starting on p. 2, readers will find simile after simile after simile. Have students list as many as they can.
• To help the students in Kek's ESL class get to know each other, they play a game called “Interview.” Your students can play the game too. Use a cardboard tube as a microphone. A student stands in front of the class and says five things about him/herself. Then each member of the class interviews the student by asking him/her a question. When you are finished, your students will have a better understanding of each other.
Similar Books for Further Reading
• The Arrival by Shaun Tan
• The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle
• Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff
