I'll need to sit with this a bit before rating it. I'm concerned it may be both too abstract and too horrifying to work for the age it seems to be intended for but I think it would be a really good conversation starter and it's certainly really valuable.

I'm bucking the tide with a three star rating, but I might change that after I take this to my classroom and see how students react.

To me, the book is so metaphorical that it might go right over the intended audience's heads.

Don't get me wrong, I love the story. I love the metaphors. It's an important book. But...what will kids think?

EDITED: The kids LOVED it and I've changed my rating to 5 stars. It was an OWL BAT BAT OWL book for them -- the grownups were screwing up, but the kids were fixing it.

Excellent book for opening a conversation about acceptance, kindness, and activism.

A stunning picture book that lays bare the destruction of war, not just of a home, a building, a town, but of a life.

The story shows a child's normal school day being destroyed by war, which then follows her as she has to escape her home, her town and her country. She eventually finds herself in a foreign land, where she is generally shown no love, trust or compassion. This is addressed at the end.

Through my own ignorance, I hadn't heard of the 3000 Chairs campaign, started in revolt against the government's decision to refuse unaccompanied children from Syria. This picture book started as a poem based on this event and would be a wonderful starting point for discussion in KS2 classrooms.

A very touching story of girl refugee and war. War takes everything and children are being turned away.

Very stark afterward gives the author's reasons for writing the poem.

This book will break your heart. Proceed with caution.

Published to help refugees. Such a sad subject but written with hope.
www.helprefugees.org

I just didn’t like this as a kid’s book.