"HOME OF THE BRAVE"

Applegate, K. (2007). Home of the brave. New York: Feiwel and Friends.

Readability Lexile: Not Available.

Target Audience: Grade 6 and up.

Setting: Minneapolis, MN.

Theme: Courage, loneliness, friendship, and family.

Characters: Kek, His cousin, aunt, the helping man (Dave), and several new friends.

Summary: Kek arrives in Minnesota in the middle of winter from a refugee camp in Africa.  He has lost his father and brother and has been separated from his mother, but he keeps hope alive that someday in the immediate future he and his mother will be reunited. Until then, he is taken in by his aunt and cousin. Dealing with the loss of all his immediate family and the only way of life he has ever known is difficult, but Kek pulls strength from the lessons he has learned from his family and the new friends that he makes in America. Kek works hard to understand what is happening around him and continually searches inside himself to discover how to start building a new life in a strange land.

A must read especially for anyone who takes for granted all he has been blessed with in The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave. Kek displays great courage and resolve as he makes his way through this new and uncertain world. This book will move you emotionally and cause you to be thankful for all you have. 

I would use this book as a means to help my students understand the devastation that takes place in other countries around the world due to prejudice and civil war. A simple after reading assignment would be to have students write a list of all the things they now possess. Examine what they have written and write a short story describing what life would be like if all of those items, including family were suddenly taken away. For all the reasons stated above, this book meets the standards of high quality literature set forth by Norton (2011).