Wild Poppies
by Haya Saleh; trans. from Arabic by Marcia Lynx Qualey
Middle School    Levine Querido    176 pp.
6/23    9781646142019    $17.99

Brothers Omar and Sufyan find their lives upended by the Syrian civil war. After their home in Raqqun is bombed, killing their father, the family moves to the more rural village of Al-Nuaman. They struggle to find food, and their mother’s diabetes endangers her health, requiring difficult-to-obtain medicine. Fifteen-year-old Omar is bookish, meek, and tries to be the man of the family; twelve-year old Sufyan also wants to help but is impatient, impulsive, and “has endless secrets.” The book alternates between their points of view, offering readers differing perspectives on the same home life. Eventually, Sufyan’s story becomes the central one when he goes missing: he is lured and kidnapped by a militant Islamic group, given military training, and being prepared for combat and death (martyrdom). This short but intense book, with its abrupt ending, deals with complicated aspects of war and how youth are often forced to take on the burdens of caretaking and problem-solving for an entire family before their time. A moving portrait of the horrors of armed conflict and a window into the epidemic of child abduction during war and the psychological effects of extremist religious grooming and indoctrination.

From the July/August 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.