SuitabookRefugee Boy
Benjamin Zephaniah
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside the child, pausing after major changes in Alem’s circumstances rather than focusing only on plot. Offer space to discuss the unhappy ending and distinguish the fictional story from wider assumptions about refugees.
- Themes
- Displacement and refuge: Alem flees conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, seeks refugee status in England and is left in an unfamiliar country. The story centres a refugee’s vulnerability and search for safety, while also giving the subject a political dimension.
- Family separation and care: Alem’s father returns to Africa, leaving him alone; Alem is subsequently placed in care and fostered by the Fitzgeralds. The book’s stance on this remains unclear.
- Outsider treatment and empathy: Alem is described as an outsider who is bullied, while the story prompts reflection on judging people by appearance and hearing their stories. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Worth knowing
- Pay attention to how Alem’s feelings and relationships change as he loses familiar support and encounters care, exclusion and friendship. The portrayal may be moving, but the complete handling of these experiences is not established.