This novel is told from the point of view of Kek, a young boy who comes alone to America from his home in Sudan, having lost his father and brother, not knowing where his mother is, to live with his aunt and older cousin. And it’s not sci-fi (thought I think she’s written other non-sci-fi books before, just nothing I’ve ever read). It’s also a verse novel, something that can be hard to master. It’s her first stand-alone novel, for one thing. I was also unsure because HOME OF THE BRAVE is, to my knowledge, totally unlike anything Applegate has written before. Because, well, as exciting as the Animorphs books are to a nine-year-old, they’re not really very well-written.

However, I wasn’t sure how great the writing would be in HOME OF THE BRAVE. I loved these books when I was younger, and even today, though I realize they’re far from being great literature, I still enjoy rereading my favorites. Katherine Applegate is also known as KA Applegate, creator of the Animorphs series (and writer of many of them, though quite a few were ghostwritten). (Sept.* Home of the Brave is a 2007 Cybils Middle Grade Fiction nomine* Precise, highly accessible language evokes a wide range of emotions and simultaneously tells an initiation story. Kek endures a mixture of failures (he uses the clothes washer to clean dishes) and victories (he lands his first paying job), but one thing remains constant: his ardent desire to learn his mother's fate. Prefaced by an African proverb, each section of the book marks a stage in the narrator's assimilation, eloquently conveying how his initial confusion fades as survival skills improve and friendships take root. An onslaught of new sensations greets Kek (“This cold is like claws on my skin,” he laments), and ordinary sights unexpectedly fill him with longing (a lone cow in a field reminds him of his father's herd when he looks in his aunt's face, “I see my mother's eyes/ looking back at me”). The boy has traveled by “flying boat” to Minnesota in winter to live with relatives who fled earlier. After witnessing the murders of his father and brother, then getting separated from his mother in an African camp, Kek alone believes that his mother has somehow survived. In her first stand-alone book, Applegate (the Animorphs series) effectively uses free verse to capture a Sudanese refugee's impressions of America and his slow adjustment.

Home of the brave kek