In the book, "The Lines We Cross" by Randa Abdel-Fattah, Michael is your typical high school junior. He plays basketball, video games and has a passion for graphic arts.
His parents are regular people, but they are nationalists and have started an anti-immigration group called Aussie Values. They hold rallies to protest the flood of refugees, immigrants and migrants that has begun in Australia. It is at one of these protest rallies Michael first spots Mina across the lines.
Mina is a refugee from Afghanistan. She came to Australia in a boat fleeing the Taliban regime having lost many members of her family, including her father and little brother. Upon arriving in Australia, she and her mother spend time in a detention camp and in time become citizens. They slowly begin to carve out a new life in their new home.
Mina has been awarded a scholarship to a prestigious prep school to better her chances at scholarships and college. Her mother and stepfather uproot their whole lives so she can attend. She is in the minority in this school full of white, privileged students. It is there she encounters Michael again as they face off in a class called Society and Culture, their opposing views and lifestyles apparent to all.
Michael is fascinated by Mina, however, wondering how this girl he is impossibly intrigued by could embody everything his parents hate about immigrants and refugees. Mina wonders how Michael could be part of a movement so filled with hate and intolerance when at school he seems like such a goofy, likable guy.
This book is about the conflict of seeing refugees, immigrants and migrants as an ideological problem and not as people. As Michael becomes more acquainted with Mina, he begins to see the issues of humanity concerning refugees and starts to question the values he has been raised with.
This is a timely book with issues that are very prevalent in today's society. It is a book about despair, but also about hope. I loved this quote from Mina, "There's a lot of ugliness under this sky. But there's plenty of beauty here too. I want to find it, spread it around, all over the cruelty and injustice. I want to shake this world like a can of soda, pop the lid and watch the bubbles explode, join a revolution to do nothing less than change the world."
Lisa Cartee is a children's clerk at Missouri River Regional Library.