Home of the Brave (my favorite readaloud of 2007) by Katherine Applegate is a lyrical novel told in the voice of brave, honest Kek, a refugee from an unnamed country in Africa starting a new life without his mother, father, and brother in stark, wintry Minnesota. The first-person young male narrator is immensely likable and the sorrows and triumphs he experiences are described with metaphors and similes that will sing in the reader's (or hearer's) heart. Grades 4-7.

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