Home of the Brave [Paperback]

A man I helped to settle here
taught me a saying from Africa.
I'll bet you would like it:
A cow is God with a wet nose.

Kek comes from Africa where he lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived. Now she's missing, and Kek has been sent to a new home. In America, he sees snow for the first time, and feels its sting. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the wintercold and unkind. But slowly he makes friends: a girl in foster care, an old woman with a rundown farm, and a sweet, sad cow that reminds Kek of home. As he waits for word of his mother's fate, Kek weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.

In this novel, told in free verse, an eleven year old African boy who has seen more than he should have seen and known great loss and sadness, opens our eyes to the horrors of war. Through his perceptions we also get a fresh view of our own county and ourselves, and we are prompted to ask questions and come to conclusions.

The combination of young Kek's innocence, the poetry of the telling, and the emotional impact of the story itself, compels readers to respond powerfully to the book, to the issues it raises, and to the telling itself.

You'll find many Literature, Language Arts, and Social Studies lessons in the novel - and many opportunities for discussion.

Katherine Applegateis the author of several best-selling young adult series, including Animorphs and Roscoe Riley Rules.Home of the Brave, her first standalone novel, received the SCBWI 2008 Golden Kite Award for Best Fiction and the Bank Street 2008 Josette Frank Award. In Kek's story, I hope readers will see the neighbor child with a strange accent, the new kid in class from some faraway land, the child in odd clothes who doesn't belong, she says. I hope they will see themselves. lóå