On Sale now!
Order from: Bookshop | Amazon | Chapters | Waterstones
An unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time—and bravely proceeding anyway—inside the Katsikas refugee camp in Greece.
“Every war, famine, and flood spits out survivors.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cites an unprecedented 79.5 million forcibly displaced people on the planet today. In 2018, Dina Nayeri—a former refugee herself and the daughter of a refugee—invited documentary photographer Anna Bosch Miralpeix to accompany her to Katsikas, a refugee camp outside Ioannina, Greece, to record the hopes and struggles of ten young Farsi-speaking refugees from Iran and Afghanistan. “I wanted to play with them, to enter their imagined worlds, to see the landscape inside their minds,” she says. Ranging in age from five to seventeen, the children live in partitioned shipping-crate homes crowded on a field below a mountain. Battling a dreary monster that wants to rob them of their purpose, dignity, and identity, each survives in his or her own special way.
The Waiting Place is an unflinching look at ten young lives suspended outside of time—and bravely proceeding anyway. Each lyrical passage leads the reader from one story to the next, revealing the dreams, ambitions, and personalities of each displaced child. The stories are punctuated by intimate photographs, followed by the author’s reflections on life in a refugee camp. Locking the global refugee crisis sharply in focus, The Waiting Place is an urgent call to change what we teach young people about the nature of home and safety.
Reviews
Finalist for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Children’s Nonfiction (Honor Book)
“Photographs by Anna Bosch Miralpeix form the illustration for what becomes a tender but sobering account of the daily routines for children who have fled Iran and Afghanistan. . . . In an impassioned afterword, Ms. Nayeri implores adult readers who have shared the book with children to do more to alleviate the suffering of people around the world who have been cruelly exiled to places not of their choosing.” — The Wall Street Journal
“This is an unflinching look at the lives of a group of refugee children from Afghanistan and Iran who live in shipping crate shelters in a Greek refugee camp for months or years, hoping to be granted asylum. The camp, known as the Waiting Place, is its own character, keeping the children stuck indefinitely. Sparse text combined with Miralpeix’s arresting full-page color photographs intimately capture the kids’ daily lives… For American readers, this moving look at these young people and their hopes and dreams could lead to greater understanding and empathy for all displaced youth.” — Booklist
“Perhaps this text will be the proverbial axe that breaks through frozen indifference and inspires some heartfelt action. Verdict: an important nonfiction tool in social emotional learning to draw attention to the harsh realities facing refugee children around the world.” — School Library Journal (Starred)
“Nayeri’s writing and Miralpeix’s photographs put faces on the immigration and forced migration crisis in the world… this is a book to be read and discussed.” — School Library Connection (Starred, Highly Recommended)
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a children’s book this year as driving, urgent, passionate, and deeply felt… This rallying cry of a book, a pressing call to action, puts a human face on a human failing to help displaced children. Get it. Read it. Share it.” — Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
“Weighty, powerful and offers important reflections for older kids on what it is to be placed in a refugee camp that turns out to be a true waiting place… Profound on every level… extremely relevant and should be read in every home and in every school throughout our nation and around the globe.” — Reading Eagle
“Locking the global refugee crisis sharply in focus, The Waiting Place is an urgent call to change what we teach young people about the nature of home and safety.” — I’m Your Neighbor Books
“Poetic and dreamlike, urgent and sobering, The Waiting Place offers an intimate and unflinching look into a refugee camp where displaced children live in makeshift homes made out of shipping containers, waiting to be released into a new place and life. At once a story, a historical record, and a call to action, this haunting and essential book bears witness to one of the great humanitarian issues of our times.”
—Catherine Chung, author of Forgotten Country and The Tenth Muse
Refugee Week Book lists by The Reading Agency (UK), Refugee Week (UK), and many others!
10 Anticipated YA Books for 2022
—Kirkus Reviews