Mishka

Starred review from September 9, 2024
This tender novel, narrated in a simple, affecting voice by nine-year-old Roya, gently illuminates the disorienting effects of the refugee experience on a child. Smuggled out of Afghanistan with her parents and three older brothers when she was three, Roya and her family subsequently lived in a refugee center for five years. After repeatedly being denied Dutch citizenship, the family finally settles in their own home in the Netherlands. While adjusting to her newfound stability, Roya realizes that the only thing missing from her family’s life is a pet. Enter dwarf rabbit Mishka, whose adaptation to the household loosely mirrors the family’s efforts in acclimating to an unfamiliar culture. As family members—each a distinctive and sympathetic character—recount their journeys to Mishka and Roya—who is too young to make sense of her scattered memories of the events—the details of their long ordeal organically emerge in a comprehensible and moving, but never overwhelming, manner. This sensitively written and poignant story by debut author Elman and van de Vendel (The Dog That Nino Didn’t Have), based on Elman’s experiences, is complemented by unadorned yet warm, childlike full-color artwork by Schaap (Of Salt and Shore). Ages 7–10.