Read December 2019.
Hani and his sister Reena have escaped war in their homeland of Syria, after their parents paid their life savings to people traffickers in an attempt to give their children a better life.
But Hani and Reena's journey has not been one to the freedom their parents hoped for. Abandoned by the people traffickers in a refugee camp in Calais, they have been recruited by a gang master using the utterly misleading name Uncle Georgio, and are now working illegally under the most atrocious conditions on a remote farm in Scotland.
At least they have each other....until Reena goes missing one night and Hani runs away, vowing to find her.
Mia is also on the run in the wilds of Scotland. After the death of both her parents and grandmother, she has been living with emotionally distant foster parents, who seem to have little genuine interest in her and the fact that she has left behind everything she ever knew. She is desperate to return to the Scottish island that used to be her home - a place where she is convinced she can be safe and happy again.
Mia comes across Hani on her journey and promises to help him find his sister - she assures him that they can all find a home "When we get the island...".
Their journey will be a dark and dangerous one, across the wilds of Scotland, dogged at every turn by the dangerous people smugglers who are keen to keep the truth about their secret business hidden from prying eyes, and from the police who seek to return Mia to social care. But they will also find allies in unexpected places, who wish them well and offer them much needed help along the way.
What will they find at the end of their journey?
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What We Get To The Island is a cracking YA adventure story that beautifully combines the excitement of an old-fashioned romp across the wilds of Scotland with a bang-up-to-date story about three children who have experienced terrible tragedy in their lives.
I really enjoyed the way Alex Nye shows us that the stories of Hani and Mia are essentially the same - both of them suffering from loss and desperate to find home/family, despite their very different backgrounds. Hani and Reena's tale is a heartbreaking one, but the story of Mia is nonetheless also one of tragedy. None of these children has had any say in what has happened to them and they are at the mercy of others who do not really care about them.
As I found from reading Alex Nye's excellent book Arguing With The Dead, where she skillfully tells the story of Mary Shelley in the form of a gothic horror, she has a talent for taking a theme and reworking it in a wholly original way and she has delightfully managed this again here. This time the story of our two children is told in a way that spins their deeply emotional tales of loss in a way that plays out like a classic adventure story. As readers, we are drawn inexorably into the search for Reena, desperate to find her safe and well, and the tension ramps up almost unbearably as the tale unfolds.
Alex Nye acknowledges that John Buchan's wonderful book The Thirty-Nine Steps has inspired her to take the story of Hani and Mia in the direction she has, and this works so well. I found this to be such a nostalgic read, as I loved The Thirty-Nine Steps too, but there are also echoes of other old favourites reworked for the modern age, like Enid Blyton's Famous Five adventures, and I found this very endearing.
This was an interesting one for me to read off the back of Rodaan Al Galidi's fascinating book Two Blankets, Three Sheets, albeit looking at a different aspect of the refugee situation. When We Get To The Island is a book that also has an important message and it is one that is very accessible for both its target audience, and adults too. It is one of those magic books that can be read by both the young and the old, as there are references that will be taken differently depending on your age - especially when it comes to the likely fate of Reena. This is a talent I greatly admire in an author.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading When We Get To The Island and can wholeheartedly recommend this if you are thinking about an easily accessible story for older children, especially one that that you can read along with them, as it tackles many issues around loss, asylum seekers, foster care and bullying as part of the thrilling story. As an ex-secondary school librarian, this is exactly the kind of book I would be adding to my library shelves and championing widely.
When We Get To The Island is available from your favourite book retailer now.
Amazon buy link here.
Thank you to Love Books Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for When We Get To The Island and to Alex Nye and Fledgling Press for providing me with a copy of this book.
From the book cover:
Hani is 12 and invisible, and yet everyone wants to capture him. After escaping from Syria with his sister, he finds himself working in atrocious conditions somewhere in Scotland. When his sister disappears, he begins a perilous journey to find her, across some of the wildest terrain in Scotland.
Mia is also on the run, and sometimes it feels as if she will never stop running. When she helps Hani escape from his captors, the two become inseparable. Her dream is to reach the island where she was last happy, when her parents were alive, and find the little house she believes they still own. Once we reach the island, she tells Hani, everything will be okay.
But their journey takes them into dangerous landscapes, hunted by dangerous men, chased through a system of underground flooded caverns while a great storm sweeps the coast. Whatever happens, Mia knows that she must help Hani to find his sister. What they will really find at the end of their journey may come as a surprise to both of them.
Alex Nye is the award-winning author of Chill and Darker Ends.
About the Author:
Her fourth book is a historical novel for adults about Mary Queen of Scots. Her fifth title, ARGUING WITH THE DEAD, is another historical novel, this time about Mary Shelley, and explores the chaotic and destructive forces which shaped her.
She divides her time between walking the dog, swimming, scribbling in notebooks in strange places, staring at people without meaning to, and tapping away on her laptop. She also teaches and delivers atmospheric candlelit workshops on creative writing/ghost stories/Scottish history. She studied at King's College, London more years ago than she cares to remember.
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