The Bone Sparrow - Zana Fraillon
This is a book I grabbed from the English department while looking for a Year 11 text. I actually thought that I had already read this book at some time in the past, but it turns out I must have been thinking of something else! Maybe Krystyna's Story?
The Bone Sparrow is set in an Australian refugee camp and stars nine year old Subhi, who has lived there his whole life. With such a setting, you know The Bone Sparrow is going to have some intense moments, and it does, but what surprised me is how strangely hopeful and optimistic the book is despite this! Yes, there are abusive guards. Yes, there are tragic deaths. Yes, there are sick relatives who may not survive. Yes, there are depressing backstories. Yes, the actual events happening around Subhi are heavy and sobering. And yet Subhi - for the most part - is upbeat. Later in the book he meets Jimmie, an Australian girl who is also upbeat, and who continually sneaks into the refugee camp to have Subhi read to her. You just know that something is going to go badly there as well!
The title refers to a necklace that Jimmie received from her mother and that features in the stories Jimmie's mother wrote in a book - the book that now she has Subhi read to her. Early on in the story Subhi is told that "a sparrow in the house, that's a sign of death" (page 18) but Jimmie has a different take on what it means, as she has been told that the Bone Sparrow "protected her family for generations..it carried the souls of all her family, keeping them together and safe on their journey." (page 22) These different viewpoints represent the book as a whole - although the spectre of death looms over the story, Subhi and Jimmie both remain optimistic about life. But will this optimism survive what is to come?
If it isn't yet apparent, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I was going to.
Needless to say, my Year 11 class are now studying it. Hopefully, they'll enjoy it as well.
Completed 11 June 2023.
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