Boy overboard: The play

Adapted for the stage by Patricia Cornelius from Morris Gleitzman’s best-selling novel, Boy Overboard depicts a deeply human side of the ‘asylum seekers’ issue by following the journey of Jamal and Bibi from Afghanistan to Australia.
Their dream is to play soccer for Australia in the next World Cup. Before they reach Australia though, they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins.
Based on real life events, this is a moving play about young people overcoming the confusion of war, politics and the search for a safe haven.

Whale rider (movie)

Crazy rich Asians (movie)

I am Malala – Malala Yousafzai

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive.

Instead, Malala’s miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world.

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Hachette

Refugee boy – Benjamin Zephaniah

Two countries at war – Ethiopia and Eritrea. Alem’s father is Ethiopian and his mother is Eritrean. Caught in the middle, they are enemies of both sides. To celebrate Alem’s birthday his father takes him on holiday for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. They have a great few days together until one morning when Alem wakes up in the Bed and Breakfast they are staying at to find the unthinkable. His father has left him.

It is only when the owner of the bed and breakfast hands him a letter that Alem is given an explanation.  Alem’s father admits that because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem’s mother felt Alem would be safer in London – even though it is breaking their hearts to do this.

Alem is now on his own, in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council. He lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear from his father, and in particular about his mother, who has now gone missing.

The bone sparrow – Zana Fraillon

Subhi is a refugee. Born in an Australian permanent detention center after his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland, Subhi has only ever known life behind the fences. But his world is far bigger than that—every night, the magical Night Sea from his mother’s stories brings him gifts, the faraway whales sing to him, and the birds tell their stories. And as he grows, his imagination threatens to burst beyond the limits of his containment.
The most vivid story of all, however, is the one that arrives one night in the form of Jimmie—a scruffy, impatient girl who appears on the other side of the wire fence and brings with her a notebook written by the mother she lost. Unable to read it herself, she relies on Subhi to unravel her family’s love songs and tragedies.
Subhi and Jimmie might both find comfort—and maybe even freedom—as their tales unfold. But not until each has been braver than ever before.

Good Reads

Boy overboard – Morris Gleitzman

Jamal loves playing football, which isn’t easy is your goalie only has one leg

and you keep having to dodge landmines to get your ball back.

Jamal’s stubborn little sister, Bibi, is even better at football than Jamal.

But girls playing football is against the law in Afghanistan.

When it is discovered that Jamal’s mother has been secretly running a school,

the family must leave their home immediately and begin a long and dangerous journey to Australia.

The children survive separation from their parents, hunger, and violent smugglers

only to find that Australia isn’t as welcoming as they had thought but, even though they face an uncertain future,

Jamal, Bibi and their parents know that as long as they are together, that is all that matters.

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Burial rites – Hannah Kent

Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they’ve heard.

Good Reads

A thousand splendid suns – Khaled Hosseini

Mariam is a harami – a bastard – who wishes desperately to be acknowledged by her father.  When her mother dies in tragic circumstances, her father gives her to Rasheed, an old shoe-repairer living in Kabul. He treats her terribly, but where is she to go?  Enter Laila, a fourteen year old neighbour who is in love with Tariq: they had their first sexual encounter and he had to leave Kabul with his family.  Laila’s family is killed and she is taken in by Rasheed and Mariam and has no hesitation in accepting Rasheed’s offer of marriage when she discovers she’s pregnant and has news that Tariq has died.

Khaled Hosseini

The year the maps changed – Danielle Binks

‘I was eleven when everything started and twelve by the end. But that’s another way maps lie, because it felt like the distance travelled was a whole lot further than that.’

Sorrento, Victoria – 1999
Fred’s family is a mess. Fred’s mother died when she was six and she’s been raised by her Pop and adoptive father, Luca, ever since. But now Pop is at the Rye Rehabilitation Centre recovering from a fall; Luca’s girlfriend, Anika, has moved in; and Fred’s just found out that Anika and Luca are having a baby of their own. More and more it feels like a land-grab for family and Fred is the one being left off the map.

But even as the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, a crisis from the other side of it comes crashing in. When 400 Kosovar-Albanian refugees arrive in the middle of the night to be housed at one of Australia’s ‘safe havens’ on an isolated headland not far from Sorrento, their fate becomes intertwined with the lives of Fred and her family, as she navigates one extraordinary year that will change them all.

Good Reads