June is World Refugee Awareness Month.  While refugees are very much present in the news lately,  the staggering statistics often obscure the personal stories that the numbers represent.  News stories, photographs and books are the only way many of us will ever know what it’s like to be a refugee.  But for the 24 people per minute who flee their homes because of war, persecution or terrorism, this media reflects their reality.

Currently, the New York Public Library is hosting an exhibit of photographs of refugee children called Where the Children Sleep.  Even if you won’t be stopping by NYPL anytime before July 10th, you can view the exhibit online.

If you are the type of reader who likes to be informed by true stories, there are plenty of good nonfiction titles that will give you some insight into the lives of refugees.

Human Cargo: a journey among refugees by Caroline Moorehead takes a truly global perspective on refugees and profiles individuals from (among other places) Liberia, Mexico and the Middle East.  Moorehead also takes a closer look at the different struggles faced by refugees who end up in camps in poverty riddled regions versus those who resettle in wealthier Western countries.

The civil war in Somalia has displaced enough people to create the the largest refugee camp in the world in Dabaab.  Human Rights Watch researcher, Ben Rawlence, tells the stories of just a few of its residents in City of Thorns: nine lives in the world’s largest refugee camp.

 

In Children of the Stone, Sandy Tolan does not seek to be strictly unbiased, but rather tells the complicated story of a Palestinian refugee who returns to a refugee camp to try to bring the life changing power of music to the children who are growing up there.

 

For a tale that is less bleak and more inspiring, there is Outcasts United: the story of a refugee team that changed a town by Warren St John about a female coach, a soccer team comprised of all refugee teenagers and a small town in Georgia.

As so many of the titles in this post reveal, religion often plays a complicated roll both in the  creating the conditions that lead to refugee crises and in the response to these crises.  For a Christian perspective on responding to the current swell of international refugees, keep an eye out for the forthcoming Seeking Refuge: on the shores of the global refugee crisis by Stephen Bauman, which is receiving positive advanced reviews.

If nonfiction isn’t your preferred type of reading material, or if you find that the best way to learn the truth is through fiction, try:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave, which is the story of a sixteen year-old Nigerian refugee whose life becomes entangled with a typical London suburbanite.

 

What is the What by Dave Eggers, which is the novelization of the life story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who found asylum in the United States in 2001.

 

The years before, during and after World War II produced a staggering number of displaced people.  For two stories of post-war refugees, try Day After Night by Anita Diamant, which shares the story of Jewish refugees held in a detention camp in Palestine in 1945 and Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, which tells the story of a Palestinian family that becomes refugees in 1948 when Israel became a state.

When it comes to the things of life that can really hard to read about, sometimes children’s’ books are a good entry point.  If you are a sensitive reader (and I freely admit that I am) stories for children, although still heartrending, tend to be lighter on explicit detail.  Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate is an absolutely beautiful story of an African child refugee who finds himself in Minnesota, still desperately hoping to be reunited with his mother.  YA author, Deborah Ellis who has written beautiful fiction about children living in war-torn Middle Eastern countries, visited Jordan in 2007 and spoke with refugees between the ages of 8 and 19.  Her resulting book Children of War: voices of Iraqi refugees contains their honest and disquieting tales.

It’s the start of summer and book blogs should feature great, fun and light summer reads.  Obviously, this post is not doing that.  We promise we’ll have plenty lighthearted fun to recommend this summer, but in honor of the millions of refugees in the world, perhaps you may want to consider setting aside a place on your summer reading list for a title that will not entertain you on the beach, but might make your understanding of the people of the world a bit more complete.