My Name is Not Refugee by Kate Milner
In this book, a mother and her son are forced to leave their home and to say goodbye to their friends. With only a backpack they set out on their journey to find a new safe place to live. Along the way, the boy sees many new things, tries different food and meets new people. They have new experiences such as spending the night in camps sleeping in sleeping bags with many other people. The family finally reaches their new home where they are free from danger and learn to adjust. The mother tells him, “you’ll be called Refugee but remember Refugee is not your name” (Milner 24).
This story is targeted for young readers and Milner does a great job using illustrations to support the text. The palette of colors and simple but intricate drawings narrate the meanings of the words so that children can understand what is happening in the story. The flow of the text and the language also make it relatable to children and allows them to comprehend the storyline.
Throughout the book, Milner also asks questions that relate to the reading. For example, on page 4 as the mother explains to her child that they will be leaving, she reminds him that he can pack his own bag but may only take whatever he is able to carry. At the bottom of the page the question “what would you take? is presented so that the reader may ask the audience for their input.
On page 6 of the story the question, “do you think you could live in a place where there is no water in the taps and no one to pick up the rubbish? is asked as you see the boy sadly staring out of the window of the car as they drive away. These questions may be hard to ask children and many children may not be able to comprehend these complexities due to not having experienced something like this first hand but these issues are important to bring up.
Although many children now, especially in the US may not have had to experience migrating or becoming refugees themselves but there are countless families and children that are seeking refuge and looking to start over in new places and it is important that teachers not only try to understand what these children are going through and have faced but also educate their students on why it is important to be accepting of these new children.
Milner’s book My Name is Not Refugee is a great start in explaining the refugee crisis to students and how important it is not only to refugees but to everyone. Stories about this topic educate children on world issues but also teach empathy and compassion.
This book was published in 2017 in Great Britain by The Bucket List, and in 2016 it was the winner of the V & A Illustration Awards. Milner was inspired by her daughter’s career experiences as a teacher and her own political ones to write this book in relation to the European migrant crisis and addresses it to younger readers. This link is for downloading the Teacher’s Toolkit for using this book in the classroom, presented by the same publisher.
http://www.bucketlistbooks.co.uk/uploads/8/3/6/3/83638416/mninr_teachers_low.pdf
