Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate

From the Publisher

Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He's never walked on ice, and he fallls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter--cold and unkind.

In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she's missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: a girl who is in foster care, an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means "family" in his native language. As Kek awaits word of his mother's fate, he weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.

Bestselling author Katherine Applegate presents a beautifully wrought novel about an immigrant's journey from hardship to hope.

Publishers Weekly

In her first stand-alone book, Applegate (the Animorphs series) effectively uses free verse to capture a Sudanese refugee's impressions of America and his slow adjustment. After witnessing the murders of his father and brother, then getting separated from his mother in an African camp, Kek alone believes that his mother has somehow survived. The boy has traveled by "flying boat" to Minnesota in winter to live with relatives who fled earlier. An onslaught of new sensations greets Kek ("This cold is like claws on my skin," he laments), and ordinary sights unexpectedly fill him with longing (a lone cow in a field reminds him of his father's herd; when he looks in his aunt's face, "I see my mother's eyes/ looking back at me"). Prefaced by an African proverb, each section of the book marks a stage in the narrator's assimilation, eloquently conveying how his initial confusion fades as survival skills improve and friendships take root. Kek endures a mixture of failures (he uses the clothes washer to clean dishes) and victories (he lands his first paying job), but one thing remains constant: his ardent desire to learn his mother's fate. Precise, highly accessible language evokes a wide range of emotions and simultaneously tells an initiation story. A memorable inside view of an outsider. Ages 10-14. (Sept.)

Children's Literature

Kek’s life in Sudan is destroyed when his family is attacked. His father and brother are killed, and he becomes separated from his mother. He is sent to join his aunt’s family in Minnesota, where he is encouraged to be grateful for his new home, but Kek does not feel at home. His loss overwhelms him, as does his new, strange environment. He now shares a home with the cousin he so admired back in Sudan, but his cousin’s life has been shifted so dramatically he now seems as lost as Kek. The new country offers beauties and harshness, as do the people who surround Kek. He recognizes hope in an elderly widow’s cow that reminds him of his father’s herds and strives to make meaning in his life as he cares for the cow and its owner, but when her farm must be sold, how can Kek save the cow and himself? The author provides a lyrical journey for her readers as they experience, with Kek, the struggle of re-making an identity and the amazing resilience of hope. Readers older than the stated age range would surely enjoy such a beautiful story. Reviewer: Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger

VOYA

Kek's brother and father are killed in the Sudan, and he is separated from his mother. A refugee group finds Kek a new life in Minneapolis with his aunt and teenaged cousin. Although Kek finds the culture, economics, and climate of America vastly different from Africa, he makes friends and assimilates easily. He gets a job taking care of a cow because it makes him feel closer to his homeland where his father raised cattle. When the woman who owns the animal is forced to sell her farm, Kek's inventiveness saves the cow from being destroyed, demonstrating his abounding ability to find the positive in hardship. This beautiful story of hope and resilience is written in free verse, a device that allows the author unlimited capacity to use colorful language and literary devices to compare the unfamiliar with the familiar, the positive with the negative. The result is an almost lyrical story of a young African boy who manages to remain upbeat despite the hardships and horror that he has witnessed and despite being thrust into an environment in sharp contrast to what he knows. Kek's voice is particularly strong as he models the difficulties experienced by a new immigrant. This book would make a great read-aloud as well as a discussion starter on the reasons why people choose to immigrate or how they might feel in a strange land. The book highlights the importance of attitude to success, a life lesson worth repeating as well.

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Kek comes from Africa.

In America, he sees the snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He’s never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter—cold and unkind.

            In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she’s missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: a girl who is in foster care, and old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means “family” in his native language. As Kek awaits word of his mother’s fate, he weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his few friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.

            Bestselling author Katherine Applegate presents a beautifully wrought novel about an immigrant’s journey from hardship to hope.

Katherine Applegate is the author of several bestselling series, including Animorphs, as well as The Buffalo Storm, a picture book.

            Home of the Brave is Katherine Applegate’s first stand-alone novel. “In Kek’s story, I hope readers will see the neighbor child with a strange accent, the new kid in class from some faraway land, the child in odd clothes who doesn’t belong,” she says. “I hope they see themselves.”

            Ms. Applegate lives with her family in North Carolina.