Dylan Evans Children's Book- The Little Refugee

"The Little Refugee", written by Ahn and Suzanne Do, with illustrations by Bruce Whatley is a powerful children's picture book aimed at promoting awareness, as well as fair treatment of refugee's. Ahn Do, a prominent Australian comedian and co-author of this book was actually a refugee as a young child himself and most of the incidents inside the book are actually what happened to him and his family. One of these incidents include their boat being overrun by pirates who almost through his brother overboard, but instead had a change of heart and left them water. The book also focuses on the young boy trying to fit into the Australian way of life and the bullying the child receives from being different.

This book is quite powerful and therefore may frighten some younger children due to the more mature themes it expresses. The book is aimed at any person from the age of 11+ I'm assuming.

Inside a classroom this book can be used to look at the issue of "boat people" and the tolerance of people who are perceived as being different. This can be linked with students perhaps writing a short piece of writing in which they detail what they'd bring with them if they had to flee their country (this task was used in my current PAR class two weeks ago).