…a stirring and timely book that strips the political baggage from the words "migrant" and "refugee," telling the deeply personal stories of displacement and disruption that were lived by Yousafzai and nine other girls…In the girls' own words, we hear about escape, resettlement and the conflicting emotions that come with fitting into a new place when so much is defined by where they came from. The accounts are intimate, and strike me as honest. At times, it felt as if the narrator were sharing her story with a trusted new friend…Racism and discrimination are painful elements in the daily lives of minorities in countries torn apart by war and civil unrest, but also right here in the United States. This helps make We Are Displaced relatable and relevant to a wide range of readers. What makes it memorable, though, is that in all these accounts, hope emerges as a kind of belligerent reaction to pain and loss.

12/24/2018

Nobel Peace Prize winner Yousafzai (I Am Malala), who famously survived being shot by Taliban soldiers as a teen in 2012, is a passionate activist for girls’ right to education. Yet, in this profound volume, she sidesteps those aspects of her life to illuminate another experience: displacement—beginning with her family’s forced 2009 evacuation of their Pakistani hometown in response to escalating Taliban violence. Comprising the bulk of the book are urgent, articulate first-person stories from displaced or refugee young women whom Yousafzai has encountered in her travels, whose birthplaces include Colombia, Guatemala, Syria, and Yemen. Their often raw testaments encompass witnessing atrocities (a Congolese native whose family fled to Zambia watched a vigilante mob attack her mother) and harrowing escapes (as the military burns their Myanmar village, a Rohingya Muslim family flees by foot to begin an arduous journey to Bangladesh). The contributors’ strength, resilience, and hope in the face of trauma is astounding, and their stories’ underlying message about the heartbreaking loss of their former lives and homelands (and the resulting “tangle of emotions that comes with leaving behind everything you know”) is profoundly moving. Ages 14–up. (Jan.)

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Nobel Peace Prize winner Yousafzai, who famously survived being shot by Taliban soldiers as a teen in 2012, is a passionate activist for girls' right to education. Yet, in this profound volume, she sidesteps those aspects of her life to illuminate another experience: displacement - beginning with her family's forced 2009 evacuation of their Pakistani hometown in response to escalating Taliban violence. Comprising the bulk of the book are urgent, articulate first-person stories from displaced or refugee young women whom Yousafzai has encountered in her travels, whose birthplaces include Colombia, Guatemala, Syria and Yemen. ... The contributors' strength, resilience, and hope in the face of trauma is astounding, and their stories' underlying message about the heartbreaking loss of their former lives and homelands (and the resulting "tangle of emotions that comes with leaving behind everything you know") is profoundly moving.—Publishers Weekly

"A stirring and timely book that strips the political baggage from the words 'migrant' and 'refugee,' telling the deeply personal stories of displacement and disruption that were lived by Yousafzai and nine other girls. ... [In] all these accounts, hope emerges as a kind of belligerent reaction to pain and loss."—The New York Times Book Review

"While geared to mature middle and high school level listeners, this is an audiobook that could be listened to and discussed in a guided family or school setting. Anyone who wants to learn more about immigration and refugees will benefit from this telling."—School Library Journal, review of audiobook edition

09/01/2019

Gr 7 Up—As a displaced person and refugee, Yousafzai provides a knowledgeable introduction to the international refugee and immigration crisis through both her own experience and through the stories of the girls and young women she chronicles in this timely work. Refugees seeking freedom from physical, emotional, and sexual terror, trauma, and danger describe their lives before, during, and after their escapes as they seek a better life for themselves and their families. Descriptions of lives in detention and in refugee camps are of particular interest for those following the crisis on our own Southern border. Another focus of the work is that of the education of girls. Yousafzai reads her own prologue, and two dynamic narrators, Neela Vaswani and Deepti Gupta, perform stories of young women from Myanmar, the Congo, Iraq, Syria, and Colombia. While geared to mature middle and high school level listeners, this is an audiobook that could be listened to and discussed in a guided family or school setting. VERDICT Anyone who wants to learn more about immigration and refugees will benefit from this telling.—Ann Brownson, formerly with Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL

★ 04/01/2019

Gr 7 Up—While Yousafzai's autobiography, I Am Malala, describes her life in Pakistan culminating in her dramatic altercation with the Taliban, this book highlights some of the work Yousafzai has done since she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The first part provides additional information on Yousafzai's life in Pakistan with an emphasis on her experience as an internally displaced person and the later challenges of acclimating to life as a refugee in Great Britain. In the second part of the book, readers are provided with narratives from other refugee girls who met with Yousafzai in different stages of her work. These stories depict the lives of girls from all over the world, pushed from their homes for different reasons and yet, Yousafzai highlights consistent themes found in each one. From the Middle East to South America, Africa to Asia, these girls and their families faced the same challenge: leaving their homes and the communities they love. Yousafzai writes with gut-wrenching detail, showing readers the many complex layers of life as a refugee including the struggle of escape, the frustrations of bureaucracy in the face of mortal danger, and the painful goodbyes along the way. She shines a light on the personal side of this international crisis and pushes every individual to find a way to contribute to the solution. VERDICT Everyone should read this book.–Paige Rowse, Needham High School, MA

Listeners will especially enjoy the foreword of this audiobook, narrated by Malala Yousafzai, in which she acknowledges that her well-known background will provide context for the many personal stories of loss that are told by refugee girls. Before each affecting story, listeners are given a brief introduction that recounts how Malala met the contributor. These intros provide consistency as the same narrator, Neela Vaswani, reads them. They include several passages that have been updated for the audio edition. Deepti Gupta delivers most of the interviews of the girls, and the occasional affectations and accents she uses to differentiate them can be distracting and take away from the stories, which are affecting on their own. Nonetheless, this is a painful and powerful listening experience that imparts current and historical events with emotional depth. E.J.F. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

★ 2018-11-12

In this uplifting work Yousafzai shares the survival stories of female refugees from around the world.

Before she was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Yousafzai was displaced. When she was just 11-years-old, the Taliban forced Yousafzai and her family to leave their idyllic home in the Swat Valley and join the ranks of Pakistan's Internally Displaced Persons. Yousafzai recounts the agony of leaving behind her books, friends, and pet chickens and the disappointment of interrupted schooling. She also vividly describes the horror of seeing schools reduced to rubble as a result of bombings, an experience that both politicized her and forced her family into exile in England. The author devotes only about a quarter of the book to her own story, the remainder is a collection of oral histories from displaced women and girls from countries ranging from Yemen to Colombia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each refugee's tale of survival is equal parts devastating and inspiring, and the narrators do not shy away from the complex, contradictory experiences of fleeing a homeland. The narratives are filled with emotionally specific descriptive details that render each voice powerful and unique. In the prologue, Yousafzai specifically states that her purpose is to transform refugees from nameless, faceless statistics into who they really are: humans whose identities are more than just their displaced status.

A poignant, fascinating, and relevant read. (author's note, background information, biographies) (Nonfiction. 13-adult)