The Bone Sparrow

Zana Fraillon

Disney-Hyperion, Dec 5, 2017 - Juvenile Fiction - 256 pages

"Indispensable."-Booklist (starred review) CARNEGIE MEDAL 2017 FINALIST
Subhi is a refugee. He was born in an Australian permanent detention center after his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant homeland, and the center is the only world he knows. But every night, the faraway whales sing to him, the birds tell him their stories, and the magical Night Sea from his mother's stories brings him gifts. As Subhi grows, his imagination threatens to burst beyond the limits of the fences that contain him. Until one night, it seems to do just that.

Subhi sees a scruffy girl on the other side of the wire mesh, a girl named Jimmie, who appears with a notebook written by the mother she lost. Unable to read it herself, Jimmie asks Subhi to unravel her family's love songs and tragedies that are penned there.

Subhi and Jimmie might both find comfort-and maybe even freedom-as their tales unfold. But not until each has been braver than ever before and made choices that could change everything.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - ClareRhoden - LibraryThing

This book should come with a warning: it will break your heart, and you will never get some of these images and concepts out of your head. Beautiful, aching, tender, disastrous, this book won the ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - SueS7 - LibraryThing

Man's capacity for inhumanity is highlighted in this story in the treatment of refugees. The author writes a moving story of two young children coping with loss. Their friendship gives them strength ...

About the author

Zana Fraillon was born in Melbourne Australia, but spent her early childhood in San Francisco. Zana has written two picture books for young children, a series for middle readers, and a fictitious book for older readers based on research and recounts of survivors of the Forgotten Generation. She now lives in Melbourne, with her three sons, husband and two dogs. When Zana isn't reading or writing, she likes to explore the museums and hidden passageways scattered across Melbourne. They provide the same excitement as that moment before opening a new book: preparing to step into the unknown where a whole world of possibilities awaits.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Bone Sparrow
• Author: Zana Fraillon
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Disney-Hyperion, 2017
• ISBN: 1484781910, 9781484781913
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Juvenile Fiction / Fairy Tales & Folklore / Country & Ethnic; Juvenile Fiction / People & Places / Australia & Oceania; Juvenile Fiction / Social Themes / Friendship