Nowhere Boy
By: Katherine Marsh / Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
Packs a wallop, like, almost imMEDiately…!
Gotta tell ya, I’m game for ANYthing; if it’s an audiobook, I’m THERE! This has led to some unfortunate Listens, to some sound thrashings of authors and/or narrators, to many an I Want My Hours Back. And sometimes? Well, cripes. I do the unthinkable and offer veritable dogs (No offense to nice pups; no offense to Sweet—who’s a good dog—Drake!) in my Tell Me What’s Next choices. Alas, sometimes my choices lead to disASTrous discoveries that I’ve yet again offered poorly. This time? They aaaaalll looked good, but I admit to being a trifle worried as this wasn’t the first Audiobook Accomplice book about the crisis in Syria or even ‘pon refugees from Syria.
That said, Nowhere Boy is very MUCh a Standout Listen. Whereas The Boy at the Back of the Class seemed geared toward much younger audiences, and whereas Refugee seemed more for older audiences but was a very short audiobook with snippets of experiences? My gosh, Nowhere Boy is just the perfect blend of the two. Geared toward older audiences as our Heroes are 13-year old Max from Washington D.C. and 14-year old Ahmed who just lost the sole survivor of his family on a perilous water crossing, Nowhere Boy manages to give the listener a bit of everything. Plight of Syrian refugees who’ve fled utter atrocities only to find themselves as hated, young teen-angst of an expat in Brussels who’s dealing with social isolation punctuated by bouts of bullying, -AND- a genius interweaving of the story of a martyr from history who lost his life in saving a young Jewish boy from the Nazis.
Utterly compelling!
The story opens with Ahmed juuuuust losing his father, the one last person he has in the whole world. Alternate that with a chapter on young Max being dragged from America to Belgium and being told he’s to be stuck in a school where he doesn’t speak the language. Apparently Max has been a sore trial to his family, at odds and ends, struggling with school and most certainly with Life. But when a horrific event with a smuggler goes awry for alone-in-the-world Ahmed, when he finds himself on the run with no place to go, when the door of Max’s rented family home is unlocked and Ahmed finds safe harbor in a hidden cellar, and when the two meet? Suddenly, Max has a friend in the world, someone who’s worse off than he is.
A story of the martyred man during the Nazi years really comes to have weight and the tinge of complete reality to Max: He sees how the refugees are hated, how they’re feared to be terrorists (Indeed, the story depicts the on-the-ground reality of life for citizens after two genuine terrorist attacks), and he wants to help. Doing nothing, Max realizes, is almost as bad as doing the wrong thing (Think: The Nazi collaborators who turned traitor and denounced martyred Albert Jonnart).
Truly, this story cuts to the bone on so many different fronts. When seemingly good people can stand by and do nothing, or worse, spew venom? When bullies might have rage, despair, trauma and tragedy in their pasts? When fear runs rampant and leads to poor choices? When pain is given a face? When kids at truly formative points of their lives choose well, choose courage?
Brava! Brava! to author Katherine Marsh!
And narrator Jeremy Arthur? Never heard of ‘im, but what a truly good performance. He does amazingly well with two verrrrry different Heroes from verrrrry different cultures, and he bounces back and forth between them in their conversations, then many more characters are thrown in, and he manages them with ease as well. Desperation? He can do that. Fear? He’s got that covered. Truly deep musings and considerations as the characters assess and start to untangle just how they would feel, just how they should act (And there’s NOTHING passive about either of our Heroes—while Max chooses actions, it’s not like Ahmed is just sitting back and letting the world jerk him around. No, he’s making choices, and criminy, he’s choosing hope over fear). All of this Arthur delivers with passion, with flair. Oh MAN how I was jacking my listening speed up cuz boy oh boy does that pebble become a rock then become a boulder plowing downhill soooo quickly; things get huge really danged fast, and repercussions could be MONstrous super soon. So lemme just do a gender-switch on the phrase and offer:
Bravo! Bravo! to narrator Jeremy Arthur.
I’ve lamented in some reviews how I, a Woman of a Most DEFinite Age, have found some Kids books to be a trifle too elementary to engage m’ aging brain, my more or less “mature” sensibilities. But this audiobook was just so gosh-darned well done.
Just super well done, and I applaud the weighty issues tackled. If ANYTHING can make a young Listener wanna grow up to do the right thing? If ANYTHING can make him/her/them wanna seize the reins and start thinking, breathing, living a more heart-centered and compassionate life?
Gosh, here you go. It’s right here, a wallop in just 8 hours that could change lives…
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