{"id":36718,"date":"2020-04-26T18:42:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T22:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36718"},"modified":"2020-04-26T18:42:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T22:42:32","slug":"review-of-sea-prayer-by-khaled-hosseini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=36718","title":{"rendered":"Review of Sea Prayer, by Khaled Hosseini"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sea Prayer<\/em><\/p>\n

by Khaled Hosseini
\nillustrated by Dan Williams<\/p>\n

Riverhead Books, 2018. 48 pages.
\nStarred Review
\nReview written November 29, 2018, from a library book
\n2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out<\/a>: #3 Other Picture Books<\/p>\n

Our library has this picture book in the adult fiction section \u2013 a decision I question. However, it\u2019s difficult \u2013 this is a serious enough topic, you don\u2019t want a happy preschool child running across it with their parents. Why not juvenile fiction? I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually the note at the very back that makes this so serious:<\/p>\n

Sea Prayer<\/em> was inspired by the story of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach safety in Europe in 2015.<\/p>\n

In the year after Alan\u2019s death, 4,176 others died or went missing attempting the same journey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The book itself contains no such tragedy. It is the letter of a father to his son \u2013 being written from a moonlit beach.<\/p>\n

Both the language and the pictures in this book are gorgeous.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the beginning:<\/p>\n

My dear Marwan,
\nin the long summers of childhood,
\nwhen I was a boy the age you are now,
\nyour uncles and I
\nspread our mattress on the roof
\nof your grandfather\u2019s farmhouse
\noutside of Homs.<\/p>\n

We woke in the mornings
\nto the stirring of olive trees in the breeze,
\nto the bleating of your grandmother\u2019s goat,
\nthe clanking of her cooking pots,
\nthe air cool and the sun
\na pale rim of persimmon to the east.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He reminisces about when they visited, wishes his son could remember.<\/p>\n

But that life, that time,
\nseems like a dream now,
\neven to me,
\nlike some long-dissolved rumor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He talks about how the city changed. The many deaths. The things his son knows about living during wartime.<\/p>\n

You have learned
\ndark blood is better news
\nthan bright.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It gets especially poignant when the letter moves to the present.<\/p>\n

Your mother is here tonight, Marwan,
\nwith us, on this cold and moonlit beach,
\namong the crying babies and
\nthe women worrying
\nin tongues we don\u2019t speak.
\nAfghans and Somalis and Iraqis and
\nEritreans and Syrians.
\nAll of us impatient for sunrise,
\nall of us in dread of it.
\nAll of us in search of home.<\/p>\n

I have heard it said we are the uninvited.
\nWe are the unwelcome.
\nWe should take our misfortune elsewhere.<\/p>\n

But I hear your mother\u2019s voice,
\nover the tide,
\nand she whispers in my ear,
\n\u201cOh, but if they saw, my darling.
\nEven half of what you have.
\nIf only they saw.
\nThey would say kinder things, surely.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He finishes with a prayer:<\/p>\n

Pray God steers the vessel true,
\nwhen the shores slip out of eyeshot
\nand we are a flyspeck
\nin the heaving waters, pitching and tilting,
\neasily swallowed.<\/p>\n

Because you,
\nyou are precious cargo, Marwan,
\nthe most precious there ever was.<\/p>\n

I pray the sea knows this.
\nInshallah.<\/em><\/p>\n

How I pray the sea knows this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s more than what I quoted here, about twice as much, and the pictures are equally beautiful.<\/p>\n

Would you give this book to a child? Even though children are the ones living it? What do you think?<\/p>\n

dan-williams.net<\/a>
\npenguinrandomhouse.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Picture_Books\/sea_prayer.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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