by Sam Juliano
Don Brown’s The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees is one of the most powerful and heartbreaking picture books of this past decade. Actually the proper classification for this 103 page work is a graphic novel, a specialty of this gifted and diverse author-artist who previously won deserved acclaimed for similar non-fiction examinations about Hurricane Katrina and the Oklahoman dust bowl of the 1930’s. There is a timeliness and an urgency to The Unwanted that make it stand apart, and there are stark illustrations that make your blood boil and provoke the deepest level of empathy for people born in the wrong place, in the wrong time under the worst of circumstances. There is great tragedy in natural catastrophes, but nothing can be as dehumanizing than rejection from one’s fellow man during a time when lives hang in the balance. At the outset of this bleak chronicle, Syrian teenage boys graffiti “Down with the regime” on a wall and are promptly arrested by the police who do the bidding for the tyrannical rule of the country’s President Bashar al-Assad. This brutal regime are responsible for torture, summary imprisonment and unconscionable street massacres, which were aimed at suppressing a civil war that continues to the present day in pockets of resistance where Kurds and other rebel forces have continued to fight Asad, incurring a mounting toll of death and destruction. With the recent decision of President Trump to pull United States out of the country, Asad’s hold will be strengthened, and the events so woefully related in The Unwanted will be encored, necessitating further forced evacuation and hardship. Unlike the Czech Holocaust drama from the early 60’s, Higher Learning, in which a brilliant and beloved student was murdered by a firing squad for scrawling satirical drawings of Hitler on a classroom slate board, the children in question in Brown’s book are eventually released after a massive public outcry, but the incident emboldens further indignation and kindles a revolt, where many other innocent citizens are killed. The fighting forces droves of people to evacuate and seek refuge in neighboring countries, and this mass exodus, still ongoing, is the main focus of The Unwanted.
The dire situation in Syria has now become more complicated with the recent decree by President Trump that American forces stationed in the country will be withdrawn, an act that be undoubtedly strengthen Assad’s hold, and leave his Russian allies in a far more commanding position. In addition, the worldwide disdain for refugees, has been further fueled by Trump’s dogged commitment to honor a campaign promise to his supporters by funding a wall along the United States’ southern border, aimed at holding immigrants for scrutiny by border guards and denying access to hoards thought to be illegal refugees. In any case, as Brown documents in uncompromising terms the Syrian crisis is one of the world’s most avoidable tragedies, even with the understanding that both sides of this humanitarian impasse offer arguments that are not so easily set aside. Yet, in the end there can be no matter honored before the suffering humanity the crisis has brought forth and Brown makes that clear in his heartfelt plea in the behalf of those caught in the proverbial and literal crossfire.
Brown chronicles the monstrous treatment of many Syrians, who are evicted from their homes. Their possession and the structures are burned to the ground. Kidnappings, shootings, executions and massacres are negotiated with impunity and some are tortured for months before being put to death. The pen and ink (with digital paint) illustrations in comic book style are of course stark and austere, and prospectively disturbing for the youngest readers. But the book is aimed at the higher end of the intended audience, which would be 10 to 13 year olds. A few years ago, another book targeting the same age range, This One Summer, a coming-of-age story by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki won a Caldecott Honor in a major surprise. Brown does not always spare the dehumanizing details like when he relates that “the lucky ones who are eventually freed return with electric shock marks, cigarette burns and broken bones.” The visceral presentation, complete with explosion bombast sometimes extends to full page tapestries which are annotated and dramatized via voice bubbles. Some of Asad’s soldiers desert and join with armed civilians to fight Asad.
With the country a battle zone, thousands have no recourse but to flee, and Brown evokes the fear through darkened minimalist vignettes of families approaching the Turkish border (others opted for Jordan and Lebanon), as they would risk their discovery by soldiers patrolling the night to escape a terrible fate by remaining. Brown portrays precarious episodes where some get caught on fences and temporarily lose their children, and one where a border guard shoots a frightened fourteen year-old boy trying to escape. Initially the countries allowing the stream of refugees are accommodating. For example, by June 2011, there are two thousand refugees in Turkey. Many find themselves in tent camps furnished by the Turkish government. Which begins as a trickle turns into a flood as Jordan too is barraged. Various sects if jihadists, who also oppose Asad add their uncompromising violence to this melting pot of death and the country is gripped by everyday horror. In order to achieve uncertain success trying to escape one man advises his son “Just walk don’t breathe” while a women give their babies sleeping pills so they won’t cry and be detected. The ISIS forces opposed to Asad also offer an unacceptable leadership solution as can be seen in one series of vignettes where a man trying to enter with a piano is challenged by these ruthless forces who invoke God to -as Brown asserts- “defend their breathtaking brutality.” The man is told that music is forbidden by Islam and the piano is burned. The owner decided then and there he too must find a way to leave, but with falling rockets exploding all around him it is a perilous proposition. Near the Turkish border he follows smugglers who take advantage of desperation to offer their assistance usually at premium prices. Boats are packed with people for the dangerous ride to Greece. Some smugglers betray their helpless clients, leaving many on the coast of North Africa instead of the European countries like Italy they requested. Smugglers also ignore safely when they overload boats. In The Unwanted’s most unforgettable and nightmarish image of all -a double page spread depicting a terrified man clinging to life in the open sea- it is revealed that he tried to catch his wife and children in his arms, but one by one they drowned. The author-artist includes a map showing the path of refugees from Syria, through Turkey and onward through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and into Austria. A bit later in the book Brown reveals that Germany was perhaps the most generous and hospital country towards the immigrants, though that high-standard-of-living beacon were also pushed to the breaking point in time.
Drivers exploit the refugees for their own selfish gain, and police are often hostile. Brown relates that some are lucky, like one man who spends days hidden in the luggage compartment of a Sweden-bound bus. Children sometimes travel alone and it is the most dangerous endeavor, though if successful they have a greater chance of being granted asylum. Back in Syria the civil war reaches epic proportions and 200,000 people flee. The most telling statistic of how the refugees have overwhelmed the countries they crossed into is hard to fathom: “Nearly a third of all people in Lebanon are Syrian refugees.” Comparatively Brown asserts it is the same as if all of Mexico suddenly moved to the United States. Without government-sanctioned camps and little official assistance refugees find themselves sharing cramped apartments, sometimes fifteen to a room and without plumbing. People are forced to dump sewage on the ground. The numbers of the refugee total reaches a million when a woman named Bushra crosses into Lebanon.
Then the horror and injustice of employment wages and long hours kicks in. Back in Syria builds are destroyed and the hand to hand combat in building ruins vividly recalls the siege on Stalingrad during Operation Barbarosa in the Second World War’s most devastating stage. Students still living there could no longer go to school and was forced to fantasize, like one girls who wishes to be a doctor. Early in 2014 Jordan is overcome with refugees, and one woman is depicted living in a playground park where they forage for food. A government camp is set up in the desert and 125,000 people take up residence in what is eventually referred to as a community unto itself. One man utters “It doesn’t even look like planet Earth out there” Named “Zaatari” it soon becomes, incredible, Jordan’s fourth-largest city. The enterprising refugees build a local economy worth millions of dollars, claims the author. The Turks are for a long time extraordinarily helpful, opening camps and spending billions feeding, educating and nursing refugees, whose numbers reach 700,000 by the middle of 2014. But the numbers eventually lower the opportunity and wages and in some instances the children are the family’s biggest breadwinners. A boy is badly beaten by others who took up residence in the park where he and his family resided. More maps and increased figures, more individual tales of hardship and violence lead to other countries changing their policies and placing severe limits on the number of and who they would allow admittance. Bulgaria for one, built an eighteen-mike wall, while Slovakia accepted only Christian refugees. Finally in one of the starkest spreads in the book people of other countries revolt by staging rallies on the streets, projecting the same message “Refugees Not Welcome.” With bombs dropping in Syria and jihadists committing comparable atrocities, staying back was suicidal. Others leave and face the same obstacles, drownings, and difficulties in relocating into refugee weary countries with citizens who feel the Syrians are depriving their own people of jobs and other opportunities. The book ends on a hopeful note, when it is asserted that teh future is for the children of the refugees.
Few books for any age are as urgent as The Unwanted and few exert the kind of emotional power Brown has invested in his bleak and tragic narrative. Matching his spare and uncompromising language are a plethora of telling illustrations, drawn with masterful diversity, with riveting sketches and deepened multi-toned colors. The feeling you get in gazing at that is that they would look almost precisely as a reader would imagine this work without pictures. That maight be the biggest compliment of all for this timely work, a conscience call to the human race and to the Caldecott committee.
Note: This is the fifteenth entry in the 2018 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 25 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in late January, hence the reviews will continue until around the middle of that month.
Acclaimed author-illustrator Don Brown