Mahmoud eventually concludes that visibility is best: “See us….Hear us. Each third-person narrative offers an accessible look at migration under duress, in which the behavior of familiar adults changes unpredictably, strangers exploit the vulnerabilities of transients, and circumstances seem driven by random luck. Each initially leaves by boat, struggles between visibility and invisibility, copes with repeated obstacles and heart-wrenching loss, and gains resilience in the process. Each traverses a landscape ruled by a dictator and must balance freedom, family, and responsibility. Yet these three refugee odysseys have so much in common. Three countries, three time periods, three brave protagonists. In the midst of political turmoil, how do you escape the only country that you’ve ever known and navigate a new life? Parallel stories of three different middle school–aged refugees-Josef from Nazi Germany in 1938, Isabel from 1994 Cuba, and Mahmoud from 2015 Aleppo-eventually intertwine for maximum impact. Readers will finish this witty, deftly crafted debut novel rooting for “Callie Vee” and wishing they knew what kind of adult she would become. Calpurnia is not a boilerplate folksy Southern heroine who spouts wise-beyond-her-years maxims that seem destined for needlepoint-her character is authentically childlike and complex, her struggles believable. Their budding friendship is thoughtfully and engagingly portrayed, as is the unfolding of the natural world’s wonders under Calpurnia’s ever-inquisitive gaze. A natural-born scientist, she alone among her six brothers has discovered the rare specimen under her own roof-a funny-smelling, rather antisocial grandfather who preoccupies himself with classifying flora and fauna.when he’s not fermenting pecans for whiskey. “Mother was awakening to the sorry facts: My biscuits were like stones, my samplers askew, my seams like rickrack.” The year is 1899, the place Texas and the problem is 11-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate, who is supposed to want to cook, sew and attract future beaux, not play in the dirt, examine insects and, perhaps most suspect of all, read Darwin’s controversial The Origin of Species, the source of the novel’s chapter introductions.
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