You can have your dogs and cats, your gerbils and hamsters and sleek sparkling fish. But you will have lived just half a life if you never love a cow.
This is an early verse novel from Katherine Applegate - here are some text quotes that really show her skill with this form and her brilliant word choices and placement:
I am a tall boy, like all my people. My arms stick out of the coat like lonely trees.
I try some English, but my mouth just wants to chew the words and spit them on the ground.
Six long scars line his forehead, the marks of manhood I watched Ganwar and my brother receive in our village ceremony. How jealous I had been that day, too young for such an honor.
He had many cattle, my father, and the respect of our village, but it was his voice that made him a rich man among men. His voice was deep, like a storm coming, but gentle, like the rain ending.
It’s a strange pain to be with those you belong to and feel you don’t belong.
I have my father’s will, my brother’s eyes, and my mother’s light. She is like newborn sun, fresh with promise, the just-beginning moments before the day fills like a bucket with good and bad, sweat and longing. Even her laughter has sun in it. Always when I think of her I see a cloudless day blooming full, I feel warmth on my shoulders, I know hope’s embrace.
I don’t have the cattle for such a fine desk as this. Oh, she says, you don’t have to pay for this desk, Kek. School’s free here. You just bring your mind and your smile every day, OK?
Bookseller blurb: Kek comes from Africa. In America, he sees snow for the first time and feels its sting. He's never walked on ice, and he falls. He wonders if the people in this new place will be like the winter--cold and unkind. In Africa, Kek lived with his mother, father, and brother. But only he and his mother have survived, and now she's missing. Kek is on his own. Slowly, he makes friends: a girl who is in foster care, an old woman who owns a rundown farm, and a cow whose name means "family" in his native language. As Kek awaits word of his mother's fate, he weathers the tough Minnesota winter by finding warmth in his new friendships, strength in his memories, and belief in his new country.
Home of the Brave was published in 2008. I read an ebook version as, I expected this book would now be out of print, - but luckily it is not so can I suggest you add this book to your library shopping list or make a request to your local public library to add this book to their shelves.
If you are book talking Home of the Brave I would use the 'chapter' entitled "How not to wash dishes". I was reading this part, and I just had to stop because I knew a huge disaster was coming.
Each week I travel on a bus and train to volunteer in a hospital library. This gives me plenty of time for reading. Today I started and completed Home of the Brave. As I stepped off the bus the lady sitting beside me commented on the form of this book. She had never seen a verse novel before. I was so happy to talk about this format and how books told as verse novels usually contain very emotional stories and that this book - Home of the Brave was no exception.
I only have one tiny quibble which is why I gave Home of the Brave (perfect for readers aged 10+) four and not five stars. When Kek meets the owner of the cow Lou, he tells her he comes from Africa - but Africa is not a country. I hoped he would say the name of his country - Sudan.
There are four parts in this book and each begins with an African proverb:
Companion books:
