Sima and her family are pressed to the rough, cold ground among fifty others. They lie next to the tall fence designed to keep them in. The wires are cut one by one.
When they make their escape, a guard raises the alarm. Shouting, smoke bombs, people tackled to the ground.
In the chaos Sima loses her parents. Dad told her to run, so she does, hiding in a school and triggering a lockdown. A boy, Dan, finds her hiding in the toilet block. What should he do? Help her? Dob her in? She's breaking the law, but is it right to lock kids up? And if he helps, should Sima trust him? Or run?
THIS MOMENT, THESE DECISIONS, WILL CHANGE THE COURSE OF THEIR LIVES.
Take a look at the themes bellow and brainstorm how the book explores each theme.
• Refugee children and families
• Ethical dilemmas
• Empathy and compassion
• Public resistance and political change
• Resilience and bravery
• Human rights
• Opportunity and privilege
Refugees are defined as "people who have fled their countries to escape conflict, violence, or persecution and have sought safety in another country."
Borderlands by
Jono, a city-born Indigenous teenager is trying to figure out who he really is and feel connected to his Country and community. With his best friend Jenny, they score gigs at the Aboriginal Performing Arts Centre and an incredible opportunity comes knocking -- interning with a documentary crew. Their mission? To promote a big government mining project in the wild western Queensland desert. The catch? The details are sketchy, and the land is rumoured to be sacred. But who cares? Jono is stoked just to be part of something meaningful. Life takes a turn when they land in Gambari, a tiny rural town far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Suddenly, Jono's intuition becomes his best guide. What's the real story behind the gas mining venture? Are the documentary crew hiding something from Jono? And could Wudun be a messenger from the land, fighting back against the invasion?
Still alive by
A graphic novel detailing author Safdar Ahmed's experiences visiting the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney. This is a work of observation and collaboration, collating Ahmed's experiences as an art workshop facilitator with the testimony and artwork of refugees who are held in immigration detention.
Detention [eAudiobook] by 
They Called Us Enemy by
Graphic memoir recounting imprisonment within American concentration camps during World War II. George Takei woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," where they would be held for years under armed guard. This firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
Refuge by
Faris is a 13-year-old Afghani who spent much of his life in Pakistan refugee camps before making the voyage from Indonesia to Australia. As the boat crashes against the rocks of Christmas Island he loses consciousness and awakes to find himself in the life he has always dreamed of in Australia, but with no memory of how he got there: not unusual, says his doctor father. He becomes one of a gang of kids who roam the beach, led by an older boy, although he slowly realises that the true power is wielded by ten year old Susanna - who has been ten years old for twenty years. Each of the children in the gang has come to Australia as a place of hope or refuge and they represent the times and places of Australia's greatest migrations. Their life is everything they have dreamed of, from the wonderful House of Women for Chinese Tien Ling to Irish Dairmid's farm, Luis's fishing boat, the library that goes on forever, and the musical concerts for German David Goldberg. Slowly our Afghan boy realises that each day he can make the choice: to stay in the dream or walk through the door on the beach, or to go back to the sea and the rocks and accept real life instead
Refugee by
Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together.
