These are sad times in places all over the world. Sometimes we get so involved and busy and worried about our lives and our part of the world that the rest of the world seems to disappear. But when we listen to the news on the radio, watch the news on television, or read the newspaper we understand that the world is a very small place and that we should be “anxiously engaged” in making it better where ever and whenever we can.
As Black History Month comes to an end I want to share stories of some recent additions to the history. In the first, a picture book, a young orphaned boy in the Sudan becomes a leader and helps other boys to safety. Linda Sue Park’s Long Walk to Water, repeats the true story for older readers, this time the boy grows up to become the author’s friend and returns to the Sudan to help those in his country. The third book for the grown-ups in the house is an incredible story of a young woman from Jordan who sees a need among refugees in our country from the Sudan and other countries and takes action to help them by coaching a soccer team.
All of these books help us realize how blessed we are to live in a free country, how much we take for granted, and they broaden our understanding of the world. There is also the underlying message to “be up and doing” in our own little world.
For older Elementary School Readers
From BROTHERS IN HOPE: THE STORY OF THE LOST BOYS OF THE SUDAN BY Mary Williams this book quote: “I was far from home tending my animals when my village was attacked. I could hear bangs like thunder and see flashing lights in the distance. Suddenly an airplane was circling above. Clouds of dust rose from the ground and bullets began to rain down on my heart. Many of the animals were killed. Others ran away in fear.”
Eight-year-old Garang, orphaned by a civil war in Sudan, finds the inner strength to help lead other boys as they trek hundreds of miles seeking safety in Ethiopia, and then Kenya, before being offered sanctuary in the United States many years later.
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For fifth grade through Middle School Readers
From A LONG WALK TO WATER 
by Linda Sue Park, this book quote: “Salva made up his mind. He would walk south, to Kenya. He did not know what he would find once he got there, but it seemed to be his best choice.
by Linda Sue Park, this book quote: “Salva made up his mind. He would walk south, to Kenya. He did not know what he would find once he got there, but it seemed to be his best choice. “Crowds of other boys followed him. Nobody talked about it, but by the end of the first day Salva had become the leader of a group of about fifteen hundred boys. Some were as young as five years old.”
When the Sudanese civil war reaches his village in 1985, eleven-year-old Salva becomes separated from his family and must walk with other Dinka tribe members through southern Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya in search of safe haven. Based on the life of Salva Dut, who, after emigrating to America in 1996, began a project to dig water wells in Sudan.
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For grown up Readers
From OUTCASTS UNITED: AN AMERICAN TOWN, A REFUGEE TEAM, AND ONE WOMAN’S QUEST TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, by Warren St. John, this quote:
“Putting Luma on a pedestal is counterproductive;” . . . “Luma is really a normal person doing what she can for the people around her. If people can look at her and see that, that she’s human, not a saint or a super-hero, and that she doesn’t--can’t--do everything or effect miracles, then maybe they can say to themselves, ‘I need to look around myself and see my neighborhood, and what is going on here and five streets over, and what I can do in terms of investing myself and my time, to be present for the people around me and to do something positive for change in my community.’”
American-educated Jordanian Luma Mufleh founds a youth soccer team comprised of children from Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkan states, and elsewhere in the refugee settlement town of Clarkston, Georgia, bringing the children together to discover their common bonds as they adjust to life in a new homeland.
