Paper Things by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

The journey through the mountains is dangerous and, before she finally reaches England and safety, Tara has lived in “homes” of many kinds including a refugee camp. Thirteen-year-old Tara and her Kurdish family have to flee Iraq and everything they know as their lives are at risk. Set in a more recent conflict, Elizabeth Laird also tells a story of flight from homelessness to safety as refugees in Kiss the Dust. Usually read for its “adventure” and the children’s remarkable spirit of survival, at its core it is also an excellent example of survival during mass displacement. Without a home to live in – or even a home country to be safe in – the three children embark on a long and dangerous journey with no guarantees that there will ever be a safe outcome. This renders them homeless they had also been effectively “orphaned” by the removal of their parents. The Warsaw home of the three children in Ian Serallier’s classic second world war novel The Silver Sword is totally demolished by the Nazis. Homelessness can be an individual family matter or it can be the displacement of whole ethnic groups or communities. What matters is that the reader can get some sense of the enormous, often terrifying emotions that typically accompany being without a fixed home and, in contrast, understand the resourceful ways in which children can create “home-like” environments for themselves even in the most dangerous of times and places.

Surprisingly, then, and given also the fact that children in every part of the world will know about homelessness, there are few books about it either published in the UK or about what homelessness might be like in the UK.īut perhaps the specifics of homelessness in terms of either time or place is not the most significant feature. Typically, home is the source of fundamental securities, which is why “moving home”, a theme which throws up many emotions that readers can easily identify with, is so relatively common in stories for all ages.

Both the place and the relationships that come from within it are frequently central to any children’s book story. From picture books onwards, “home” is of great importance in children’s books.

Paper Things by Jennifer Richard Jacobson