Illegal

Starred review from April 30, 2018
This achingly poignant graphic novel by Colfer and Donkin, collaborators on the Artemis Fowl graphic novels, imagines how one Ghanaian orphan ends up adrift in the Mediterranean. Ebo’s older sister Sisi is already in Europe, and he knows his brother Kwame is headed there, too, so Ebo sets out to find him. It’s clear that he succeeds, because the story opens on a scene of the two brothers drifting without food or water on the ocean. But in flashbacks, they see Ebo searching for Kwame in a teeming refugee hub in Niger. Punchy dialogue and wistful narration note both Ebo’s poverty and his gifts: optimism (“I’m stronger than I look,” he tells a boss), a talent for singing, and initiative (he parlays a box of wet wipes into cash by selling them one by one). Water is precious, and Ebo and Kwame endure periods of intense thirst. Rigano brings the brothers’ struggle close, but his magnificent panels include moments of beauty, too. Clouds tower above the ocean, and starry skies light the desert. Refugees, readers will understand, are not statistics; everyone is an individual. Ages 10–up. Agent: Susannah Palfrey, Hachette Children’s Group. (Aug.)■

May 1, 2018

Gr 6-8-Twelve-year-old Ebo's tale doesn't begin on the raft on his way to Europe. It doesn't begin as he works in the streets of Tripoli, Libya, to earn his fare. It doesn't begin with the journey across the Sahara or even in his home of Ghana. It starts when his brother, Kwame, leaves home to find their sister, Sisi, long departed for Europe. Not content with a life of poverty, Ebo, too, takes off, close on his brother's heels. Colfer and Donkin gloss over nothing in their portrayal of undocumented immigration, from illness and violence to poverty and corruption. Throughout the months of hard labor he must endure to pay for a ticket, sleeping outdoors and depending on the kindness of strangers, Ebo remains determined. Rigano's dynamic images keep readers on the edge of their seats, and the portrayal of tenacious Ebo is elegant but unromanticized. In a scene toward the end, in which rescue is uncertain, the authors firmly assert that no human is illegal; Ebo says, "They must help us, we are people." The novel concludes with a starkly illustrated true account of an immigrant who faced trauma in her quest for a better life. VERDICT A thrilling and moving addition to any collection, and ideal supplemental reading in classes where students are studying immigration.-Anna Murphy, Berkeley Carroll School, Brooklyn

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2018
Ebo is known across his village for his beautiful singing voice, but will his voice keep him safe in his journey to the shores of Europe? Readers follow the flight of Ebo, a Ghanaian refugee child, to Europe to find the siblings who fled before him. Ebo's journey takes him across the scorching heat of the Sahara and through the streets of Tripoli, where he works to raise funds for passage across the Mediterranean. All the while, Ebo and the companions he meets along the way must elude the watchful eyes of the authorities who are constantly on alert for refugees. But after Ebo finally saves enough money and secures a seat on a boat crossing to Greece, he finds himself on the brink of death. Like all the others, it is too crowded; the engine is broken; and the fuel is slowly running out. Authors and illustrator take readers back and forth through time, building suspense as Ebo's story of survival unfolds. The format allows sensitive and difficult topics such as murder, death, and horrific, traumatizing conditions to unfold for children, Ebo's reactions speaking volumes and dramatic perspectives giving a sense of scope. A creators' note provides factual context, and an appendix offers an Eritrean refugee's minimemoir in graphic form.Action-filled and engaging but considerate of both topic and audience, Ebo's story effectively paints a picture of a child refugee's struggle in a world crisscrossed by hostile borders. (Graphic fiction. 10-15)

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Starred review from July 1, 2018
Grades 6-9 *Starred Review* Ten-year-old Ebo has lost his parents, his Uncle Patrick is always drunk, and his older sister Sisi is missing. And then his older brother Kwame vanishes to search for Sisi and find a better life in Europe. With nothing left tying him to their tiny Ghanaian village, Ebo boards a bus to Agadez, Niger, determined he'll somehow reunite with Kwame. Nineteen months later, Ebo and Kwame, with 12 others in a leaking dinghy made for six, are desperately trying to reach Italian shores. The brothers have endured a harrowing journey through the Sahara Desert to Tripoli, Libya, hoping to cross the Mediterranean and land as refugees. The horrors Ebo witnesses and the impossibilities he survives constitute a haunting testimony to the human spirit. Artemis Fowl creator Colfer (who taught elementary school in Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia) leads the team that was also behind the Artemis Fowl graphic adaptation in transforming staggering statistics (UNHCR's 2017 data cites 65.6-million have been forcibly displaced) into a resonating story about a single boy and what remains of his family. Italian artist Rigano's gorgeously saturated panels?rich in detail, affecting in captured expressions, with landscapes made spectacular as a reminder of everyday beauty despite tragedy?prove to be an enhancing visual gift to the already stirring story. A creators' note and quotes from real refugees round out this illuminating, important volume.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2019
Twelve-year-old Ebo and his older brother are among hundreds of migrants on a crowded boat to Europe when it capsizes. Chapters alternate between "now" (at sea) and "then" (Ebo's sojourn from Ghana by truck and on foot). Moments of resilience and generosity stand out, but perhaps most moving are close-up panels of distressed faces and haunting images of death. This poignant graphic novel humanizes an ongoing tragedy.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2019
When twelve-year-old Ebo discovers that his older brother Kwame left their village in Ghana to find their sister, who immigrated to Europe, Ebo strikes out on his own and follows Kwame. Reunited in Niger, the brothers cross the Sahara Desert by truck and on foot and arrive in Tripoli, where they board a rotten, patched-up inflatable boat that soon rips. A larger, already crowded vessel carrying migrants rescues them. Passengers are a sea of faces?all of them looking to Europe. All of them have their own reason for making this terrible journey. When the boat capsizes, sending hundreds into the water, they are approached by a helicopter that can only rescue so many. Chapters alternate between now and then; now takes place at sea, and then tells of Ebo's sojourn from home to the point where he and Kwame board the boat. Moments of resilience, loyalty, and generosity stand out, but perhaps most moving are the close-up panels of faces in distress, the roiling ocean, bodies flailing in the water, and haunting images of death. Detailed renderings of crowded boats and cramped trucks have an appropriately photojournalistic quality. Visceral and poignant, this graphic novel (like Don Brown's The Unwanted, rev. 9/18; and Morten D�rr's Zenobia, rev. 11/18) humanizes an ongoing tragedy and implicitly asks whether it should ever be illegal to help a child in need. julie hakim Azzam

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)