Shortly before the Christmas break, St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School kindly distributed over 200 books to the S2 pupils, as part of the First minister’s reading challenge – which the High School is piloting for all secondary schools in Scotland. The year group was then set a challenge to fulfill by Mid-February of this year…
They could express their feelings in any way they wished, including: writing a song and performing it, write about how reading the book made them feel, or even creating a comic book strip detailing one of their favourite chapters. Here’s my take.
‘Welcome to Nowhere‘ is the enthralling new novel by Elizabeth Laird; it tells the story of the twelve-year-old boy Omar. Omar lives in Syria, shortly before [and after] the outbreak of war, we learn of his family’s displacement and their trials and tribulations and we are carried along with the struggles they had endure to make a better life for themselves.
Elizabeth Laird bravely tackles the delicate subject of the Syrian civil war, giving new insight to the reader allowing them to almost feel the blood, sweat and tears endured by our characters.
We are swept along with the rapid destabilisation of Omar’s home country. In spite of this he is still driven by a desire for a better life, his main objective is to survive and ensure that those closest to him do as well. Namely Omar’s family of six people, there is himself an audacious and naïve child but also a budding entrepreneur, there is his older brother Musa who lives with the condition of cerebral palsy, despite the challenges this brought he could only be described as a genius with a flair for chaos. We also have his infant sister Nadia who is an innocent caught in the crossfire. His eldest sibling, Eman, an intelligent girl with an uncertain future before her of being forced into an arranged marriage at a young age, his mother a caring woman who only dreams of the best for her children, and finally is his father an irritated and stubborn man who in the end always has his way.
The war began as just another rant on social media, slowly gathering force behind it. It then gathered momentum building into protests, and political demonstrations. Syrian citizens began to make demands to the government for change, when this was inevitably ignored, the demonstrations became riots. The government first imposed a curfew. This was disregarded by the citizens and the government adopted a more violent approach to the situation. Later again as the conflict began to escalate the government unbelievably initiated airstrikes on their own citizens. This left the survivors of these savage attacks with no option other than uproot and move on to desperately find refuge anywhere possible.
This book is a journey I would encourage everyone to embark upon, it is a story masterfully told, which provides an unusual amount of food for thought, and no matter your view on the crisis in Syria, this will radically change your opinion.
Although the scars of war will never fade, and the thought of home will never leave them, it remains imperative that while we share this world, we move forward together.
