While a small circle of people flees strange terrain, two small children use familiar objects, such as a cup and lamp, to spin their reality into a hopeful future. The girl begins every sequence with the word here. So, “here is a blanket,” but the blanket transforms to a sail to guide them through inhospitable seas, until finally they arrive to the final here, which, the reader hopes, is home. This gentle story, creative in design as well as its verbal and visual aspects, provides readers with a glimpse of the inner life of two young refugees.

2021 USBBY Outstanding International Book.

Author, born in England, and illustrator, born in Iran, now both live in Canada.

Canada. Originally published in English by Tundra Books in 2020. Published in the United States by Tundra Books.

When you have to leave behind almost everything you know, where can you call home? Sometimes home is simply where we are: here. An imaginative, lyrical, unforgettable picture book about the migrant experience through a child's eyes.

When a little girl and her younger brother are forced along with their family to flee the home they've always known, they must learn to make a new home for themselves -- wherever they are. And sometimes the smallest things -- a cup, a blanket, a lamp, a flower, a story -- can become a port of hope in a terrible storm. As the refugees travel onward toward an uncertain future, they are buoyed up by their hopes, dreams and the stories they tell -- a story that will carry them perpetually forward.

This timely, sensitively told story, written by multiple award--winner Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Sendak Fellowship recipient Rashin Kheiriyeh, introduces very young readers in a gentle, non-frightening and ultimately hopeful way to the current refugee crisis.