While Aleppo has been devastated by the Syrian civil war, life for Sami in Damascus has been largely untouched by the violence. That changes when a mall in the city center is blown up while his mother and little sister Sara are there, picking up Sami’s soccer shoes. Although neither are badly physically injured, Sara stops speaking, and Sami’s parents decide their family must flee Syria. After secret planning and an unpredictable journey, Sami’s family seeks asylum in England, staying at a refugee shelter before being released to a sponsor, his father’s friend Muhammad. Sami feels guilty about Sara’s silence; angry at Muhammad’s wife and son, who clearly resent their family’s presence in their home; and longing for his best friend, Joseph. He’s also worried about his grandma, who stayed in Damascus, and about Aadam, a teenage refugee they met before making the treacherous journey by boat to Greece. Sami’s coping mechanism for the guilt and unhappiness is to engage in magical thinking about returning to Damascus on his own. A novel about one Syrian Muslim family’s refugee journey is steeped in intense feelings and vivid details. The story makes clear their path is smoother at times because Sami’s father is a doctor and the family has economic resources that help them escape, but it’s still a steep and uncertain arc they are traveling in a novel that ends with them poised at a point of promise. (Ages 9-13)

What turns citizens into refugees and then immigrants? In this powerful middle-grade debut, Sami and his family embark on a harrowing journey to save themselves from the Syrian civil war.

Sami loves his life in Damascus, Syria. He hangs out with his best friend playing video games; he's trying out for the football team; he adores his family and gets annoyed by them in equal measure. But his comfortable life gets sidetracked abruptly after a bombing in a nearby shopping mall. Knowing that the violence will only get worse, Sami's parents decide they must flee their home for the safety of the UK.

Boy, Everywhere chronicles their harrowing journey and struggle to settle in a new land. Forced to sell all their belongings and leave their friends and beloved grandmother behind, Sami and his family travel across the Middle East to Turkey, where they end up in a smuggler's den. From there, they cross the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean and manage to fly to England, only to be separated and detained in an immigration prison for the "crime" of seeking asylum. Yet the transition from refugee to immigrant in a new life will be the greatest challenge Sami has ever faced.

Based on the experiences of real Syrian refugees, this thoughtful middle-grade novel is the rare book to delve deeply into this years-long crisis. A. M. Dassu has used her publishing deal advances for Boy, Everywhere to assist Syrian refugees in her city and set up a grant to support an unpublished refugee/recently immigrated writer. Sami's story is one of survival, of family and friendship, of bravery and longing ... Sami could be any one of us.