Review 2: No Safe Place by Deborah Ellis

No Safe Place

Deborah Ellis

Toronto, Ontario: Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2010.

205 pp., pbk., $12.95.

ISBN 978-0-88899-974-0.

Grades 9 and up / Ages 13 and up.

Review by Sheela Sur.

****/4

excerpt:

     The small concrete yard was empty in the heat of the day, so Abdul had no problem crossing it and letting himself out through the high metal fence that separated the house from the street.

     He stepped into a city he didn’t recognize.

     It was as though God had picked up the world, shaken it madly, then let it fall through His fingers and scatter on the ground.

     The houses immediately around Abdul’s house all had pieces missing.  One had a huge hole in the roof.  Another had a hole in the wall.  Another had collapsed altogether.  There were big chunks of cement and glass everywhere.

Deborah Ellis’s No Safe Place is the story of three teenaged migrants who have travelled illegally from their home countries and, brought together by a corrupt smuggler, make the final stretch of their journey to England together in October 2009. 

     Ellis tells the harrowing tales of Abdul, a fifteen-year-old boy with a passion for song-writing who flees Baghdad after witnessing the violent murders of his father, mother, and best friend; Rosalia, a strong-willed Roma girl who escapes from northern Berlin after being sold to a brothel; and Cheslav, a gifted musician who refuses to face the brutality and suppression of a Russian military academy. 

  

   Their stories are believable and heartbreaking.  Ellis, author of The Breadwinner Trilogy, continues to expand the reader’s knowledge of the challenges that are faced by too many young people around the world every day.  The action is fast-paced but the characters are still given ample room for development.  This novel will work for the socially conscious reader, in the political science classroom, and as a riveting story for the teen reluctant to read.  However, the ending does not provide a tidy resolution and should not be read by someone hoping for a “happily ever after.” 

Highly recommended

Find No Safe Place at the London Public Library (Click here!)