Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini illustrated by Dan Williams

"... among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don't speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home."

This is a deeply moving, important and lyrical book. A father writes a letter to his son describing the past, the present and his hope for their future.

Sea Prayer was inspired by one refugee. In 2015, a Syrian toddler named Alan Kurdi drowned, along with most of his family, while attempting to cross to Greece. The boy's body was memorably photographed face down on a Turkish beach.

Listen to a radio interview with NPR. You can hear Khaled read extracts from this text.

Publisher blurb: On a moonlit beach a father cradles his sleeping son as they wait for dawn to break and a boat to arrive. He speaks to his boy of the long summers of his childhood, recalling his grandfather's house in Syria, the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of his grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots. And he remembers, too, the bustling city of Homs with its crowded lanes, its mosque and grand souk, in the days before the sky spat bombs and they had to flee. When the sun rises they and those around them will gather their possessions and embark on a perilous sea journey in search of a new home.

Who is the audience? I think this is a book best suited to readers aged 13+ up to adults. If you are using this with a class I would begin with the beautiful phrase:

"I look at your profile in the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy closed in guileless sleep."

The book reads like an emotional gut-punch…an excruciating one. It is impossible to read without feeling intense compassion for those—and there are thousands—whose lives resemble those of the characters in the book. Kirkus

Sea Prayer is a book that crosses genres and boundaries. It reads like a poem, possessing the rhythm of an old, almost-forgotten song. ...  It will allow adults to walk, for a few moments, in a refugee family’s shoes. It helps us imagine the desperation of a decision to flee home and cross a cold, dark sea. It is a book that should, and will, endure. It’s a book that will break your heart wide open. NY Journal of Books

One of the most striking things about this book is the gentle water colour art. You can see inside Sea Prayer on Dan Williams web site. 

Williams uses sweeping colours to convey both the beauty of Syria but also the dark haunting nature of war and being torn from your country. Waking Brain Cells

The retail price of this book, published in 2018, is $25 but I was lucky to find a brand new copy at a recent charity book fair for just $5. I am so pleased I can now add this book to my collection.