Novel Study Refugee Map

Three different kids.

One mission in common: ESCAPE.

Josef is a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world…

Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety and freedom in America…

Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe…

All three young people will go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers–from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But for each of them, there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, surprising connections will tie their stories together in the end.

Hamburg

Rotterdam

Berlin

Antwerp

Le Mans

Vornay

Boulogne

Character Box

Tallit

Ruthie's Stuffed Bunny

Yarmulke

Torah Scroll

Torah Scroll

The Torah scroll is a long scroll containing the entire five works of Moses, handwritten by a pious scribe in original Hebrew. It is the core of Judaism, and is often read aloud at synagogues during prayers and blessings. Josef's family, having been forced out of their homeland for their religion, paid much importance to prayers as we can see in Josef thoughts during his bar mitzvah aboard the St. Louis. He recalls his childhood memories of attending the synagogue with his family, reaching out to receive the holy touch of the Torah scroll. Based on this evidence we can conclude that religion and the Torah scroll held an important role in his life.

Yarmulke

Like the Torah scroll, the yarmulke or kippah is another religious object commonly worn by Jewish men to fulfill the requirement that their heads be covered in prayer. Judaism holds an important role in Josef and his family as we see in the St. Louis synagogue section when Josef reveals his childhood memories of coming to prayers in the synagogue, seeing the rows, upon rows of people praying and his family as one among them. Based on this evidence, we can conclude that the synagogue represented not only a place of worship, but also of happiness to Josef and his family.

Isabel's Character Box

Ivan's Industriales Cap

Isabel's Trumpet

Sugarcane

The Boat used for Isabel's Escape

Cuban clave

Isabel's Trumpet

From the beginning of the novel, the reader can observe Isabel's love for music and its importance in her life. Throughout the story, Isabel describes her life as a complex melody, from which her journey to El Norte is a song with a refrain of leaving home and a climax of finally reaching freedom with her family. She describes Ivan's death as a verse in her song and her Lito's sacrifice for her happiness as a complex composition in the climax. The cultural and social aspects of Isabel's stroy also revolve around the importance of Cuban music to her and her family. In the last chapter Isabel describes her finding home and freedom in America as her discovering the hidden clave in the music - she has discovered her hidden happiness along with the clave.

Ivan's Industriales Cap

Isabel loses her close friend and neighbor, Ivan Castillo over the course of the novel. Ivan is bitten by a shark during their voyage to America and loses his life at sea. Isabel, in her sadness, keeps his Industriales (Havana's baseball team) baseball cap, promising to never forget him. At the end of the last chapter, Isabel continues to remember her friend lost at sea by playing her song on the trumpet to commemorate all the losses and sacrifices she faced throughout her journey.

The Castillo's Raft

Isabel and her family along with the Castillo family make their journey to El Norte on this raft built by Senor Castillo. This raft is their passage to El Norte and freedom with it. Isabel faces many hardships, losses, sacrifices, and hopeful moments on this raft. She sees her closest friend pass away, her grandpa sacrifice his freedom for Isabel's sake, her mother give birth to her little brother, and finds her family and freedom on this raft. Throughout the story, this raft acts as a carrier in Isabel's story, weaving one chapter into the next for the reader.

Sugar cane

Isabel, her family, and all those around her are impacted by the loss of the Soviet Union's supply of resources since its downfall. The Soviet Union attracted Cuban farmers to sugarcane and would purchase this crop in exchange for the supplies Cubans needed on their island. Their downfall led to the loss of farmers and crops as well as the supplies cubans needed to survive. Isabel and her family are one of the thousands of Cubans who tried to escape these harsh conditions in the 1990s. Without these factors, many Cubans may have chosen to remain on their homeland as opposed to travelling to the U.S.

Berlin: Mahmoud finally finds a home in Ruthie Landau's house.

Hungary:

Mahmoud and his family are detained

Austria: Mahmoud starts a revolt by walking to the Austrian border

Serbia

Macedonia

Izmir

Athens

Mediterranean Sea

Aleppo

Character Box

Waleed's Ninja Turtle he receives from Mahmoud in Turkey

Quran

Mecca

Quran

The Quran is viewed by Muslims as the book of divine guidance revealed by Allah. It is regarded as the sacred word of Allah and his final guidance to humanity. Throughout the novel, we can observe Mahmoud and his family following Islamic procedures, stopping to pray facing Mecca five times a day. Mahmoud is also described to be praying along with his brother at the beginning of the novel, before his apartment is hit by a missile and his family is forced to flee to Europe.

Waleed's Ninja Turtle

From the beginning of the novel, we can observe Mahmoud's affection for his brother, waiting for him to finish praying, watching his every step to prevent Waleed from being hurt. Waleed can be seen losing his original personality, faced with the horrors of the Civil war in Syria. These eventually transform Waleed into a robot with no emotions, something that greatly effects Mahmoud.