Subhi has lived his entire life in a refugee camp in Australia, the first child born there a decade ago. He and his family are members of the Rohingya minority ethnic group from Burma (Myanmar). Subhi’s best friend, Eli, is just a few years older, but when Eli angers camp authorities, he’s transferred to the men’s compound, separating the boys. Jimmie is a girl living nearby who sneaks into the camp one day with a notebook containing the stories her mother wrote down before she died. Jimmie struggles to read, but Subhi knows how, and when the two meet the stories become the impetus for friendship. As Subhi reads them aloud, Jimmie feels closer to her mother and Subhi to his father, a poet he knows only from his mother’s stories. Subhi’s and Jimmie’s lives and heir friendship are compelling—two children in painful circumstances finding solace in each other—while the illumination of the often cruel conditions at the refugee camp form both the novel’s backdrop and one dimension of its riveting climax. An author’s note provides more information about the political complexities of refugees, human rights abuses in refugee camps in Australia, and the Rohingya, considered by the UN and Amnesty International to be “one of the most persecuted people on earth.” (Ages 10–13)

"Indispensable." -- Booklist (starred review)

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.