This realistic fiction novel for upper middle school/YA readers pairs well with Alan Gratz’s Refugee and rivals it in terms of power. The parallel story of two boys who have found themselves in uncomfortable, life-changing situations in Brussels, Belgium: American, Max, and Syrian, Ahmed. Max  has been moved to Brussels in an attempt to give him a change of scenery after a series of misdeeds at school. Max is frustrated, angry, and sure that his parents are ruining his life. School is in another language, a group of boys have targeted him for this “otherness”, and he is convinced that life cannot get much worse. Ahmed is a Syrian refugee who has fled his homeland after a bomb wrecked his home and killed his mother, sisters, and grandfather. He has made the perilous journey to Brussels where he lost his father along the way and was swindled out of his money and phone by an unscrupulous man. Out of options, exhausted, sad, frightened, and wet, Ahmed pushes on the back door of a townhouse. When it opens, he stumbles in to discover an unused wine cellar where he can hide until he can figure out what to do. The stark contrast between one boy’s definition of “the worst it can get” and one boy’s struggle for survival under the weight of excruciating loss will not be lost on readers. And the twining in of the story of another boy, Albert Jonnart, who hid a Jewish boy during WWII 73-years prior to Max and Ahmed’s situation adds depth to the significance of what is happening in Syria and depth to the conversation, “what is our responsibility to those in need?”  Marsh has crafted a beautiful novel that should be put into the hands of as many young people as possible.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth