The Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781536213621)

An unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time--and bravely proceeding anyway--inside the Katsikas refugee camp in Greece.

Every war, famine, and flood spits out survivors.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cites an unprecedented 79.5 million forcibly displaced people on the planet today. In 2018, Dina Nayeri--a former refugee herself and the daughter of a refugee--invited documentary photographer Anna Bosch Miralpeix to accompany her to Katsikas, a refugee camp outside Ioannina, Greece, to record the hopes and struggles of ten young Farsi-speaking refugees from Iran and Afghanistan. "I wanted to play with them, to enter their imagined worlds, to see the landscape inside their minds," she says. Ranging in age from five to seventeen, the children live in partitioned shipping-crate homes crowded on a field below a mountain. Battling a dreary monster that wants to rob them of their purpose, dignity, and identity, each survives in his or her own special way.

The Waiting Place is an unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time--and bravely proceeding anyway. Each lyrical passage leads the reader from one story to the next, revealing the dreams, ambitions, and personalities of each displaced child. The stories are punctuated by intimate photographs, followed by the author's reflections on life in a refugee camp. Locking the global refugee crisis sharply in focus, The Waiting Place is an urgent call to change what we teach young people about the nature of home and safety.

Author: Dina Nayeri
ISBN-10: 1536213624
ISBN-13: 9781536213621
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)
Language: English
Published: 05/03/2022
Pages: 64
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 10.30h x 10.00w x 0.50d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus
Quiz #/Name: 517701 / Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found

Award: Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards - Honor Book

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 03/01/2022
Booklist 03/15/2022 pg. 61
Horn Book Magazine 05/01/2022 pg. 165
School Library Journal 06/01/2022 pg. 92
Publishers Weekly 06/27/2022
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2022 - Superior,Well Above Average
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 02/01/2024