"My dear Marwan,/ in the long summers of childhood,/ when I was a boy the age you are now,/ your uncles and I/ spread our mattress on the roof/ of your grandfather's farmhouse/ outside of Homs." So begins a father's account of an idyllic childhood, followed by memories of the darker times that followed: "First came the protests./ Then the siege./ The skies spitting bombs./ Starvation./ Burials." Marwan, too, knows these dark times; after intimating that Marwan's mom is dead, his father notes, "You have learned that mothers and/ sisters and classmates can be found/ in narrow gaps between concrete,/ bricks, and exposed beams,/ little patches of sunlit skin/ shining in the dark."
In an afterword, Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, among other bestselling novels for adults, explains that Sea Prayer honors Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 after fleeing his war-torn homeland. (All proceeds from the sale of Sea Prayer will go to the UN Refugee Agency and the Khaled Hosseini Foundation.) In the shadows of Hosseini's elegant prose poem and Dan Williams's cascading, weather-swept art stands an indictment of civic complacency during such a major refugee crisis. But the kids who are among Sea Prayer's intended readership likely won't detect politics; they'll be intrigued by the scenario before them: a large group that includes Marwan and his father is walking to the beach. When the group boards a boat and sets off in search of a safe haven, young readers may see nothing but hope. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author