Escape by Ming and Wah illustrated by Carmen Vela

ESCAPE - es-cape (verb) - To avoid a threatening evil.

Syria to Greece; Mexico to the United States; Austria to China; Kirabati to New Zealand; Paris to Portugal; Eritrea to Sudan; East to West Germany.

The topic of refugees has been widely explored in picture books in recent years. I have a Pinterest on this topic. The books we share with our students usually focus on more recent events but Escape gives this topic a wider historical and international focus. 

Blurb- "Throughout history, ordinary people have been forced to leave their families and homes because of war, famine, slavery, intolerance, economic and political upheaval or climate change. These remarkable true stories  of escape show how courageous people all around the world have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their fight to freedom."

The sections in this book are defined with synonyms for the word escape: cling, dart, defy, disguise, flee, fly, pedal, raft, sprint, stowaway, swim and tunnel. The experiences that are described come from 1745 right up to 2015.

Here are a few text quotes:

Syria 2011 - meet Yusra who competed in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Games - "The sisters clung on for hours, shivering with cold, helping direct the dinghy. A larger boat filled with refugees sped past but ignored their cries for help, as did coast guard patrols."

Czechoslovakia 1984 - meet Ivo Zdarsky who built a successful propeller company in America - "At 3am one summer night, Ivo took his handmade motor-powered hang glider to a field near the Austrian border. He started the engine and took off in the direction of Vienna ... (on landing) he raised his arms, handed a mechanic his expired passport, and requested political asylum."

Cuba 1960-1990 - meet Fidel Albelo (a balseros or rafter) who later became a wrestling coach and referee - "Fidel Albelo spent years hoarding materials to build a raft. Bringing only food, water, and run, and giving the impression they were going fishing, he and his two cousins crept out early on morning, telling no one." 

The escapes I found most moving were the people who tunnelled under the Berlin Wall in 1964. It took five months and over two days 57 people escaped to the West. And this one - during the 1960s and 1970s 700,000 people escaped from China to Hong Kong - many of them swimming for over six hours in shark-infested waters and even during a typhoon.

If you use my blog as a way to source books for your school library - Primary or High School - I highly recommend you add this book to your purchasing list. This is a book that needs to be shared in schools. Here is an interview with the creators of this book. Ming and Wah are twin sisters and Carmen Vela was born in Spain. 

An arresting collection of deep, accessible stories of people on the move. Kirkus Star review

For centuries, people have left their homes for such reasons as famine, slavery, war, intolerance, political turmoil and more recently, climate change. They had two things in common, their determination to search for a better life elsewhere, and their bravery. Red Reading Hub