Displaced

Happy Thanksgiving! It's good to be grateful every day; perhaps I have just read too many middle grade novels where children have fewer things for which to be thankful. I'm routinely thankful for indoor plumbing, a warm, safe bed at night, healthy food to eat, and for not having to help evacuate children from London during the Blitz. We may be living in difficult times in the US, but they are not as difficult as Kenya in 2007! 

 

Ochieng, Patrick. Displaced

Cover by Moera

August 5, 2025 by Carolrhoda Books ® 

Copy provided by the publisher 

Kimathi lives in Eldoret, a town in the Rift Valley of Kenya, in 2007. In the post election violence of the time, his family's home is attacked, and his father and a family friend who tried to warn them are killed. Kim, his mother, and his young sister Ngina escape and take refuge at the local police station. They are eventually taken to a camp for internally displaced people, but on the caution of a boy named Samoei, they wait for an old truck to take them to a camp in Nakuru rather than a worse camp farther away. Sam and his sister Chebi become friends with Kim, and they all settle down to life in tents. The children are enrolled in the local school, where Mr. Njagua tells them all that in school, tribes don't matter. Kim and Ngina see a psychologist, Dr. Tabitha, when their mother is concerned about their frequent nightmares. Kim doesn't want to talk, but begins to see how this might help him process the loss of his father, especially since he is prone to passing out when he is stressed. Water and food are scarce in the camp, and must be paid for. Water especially is problematic. Not only is it expensive, but some is not clean, and can lead to typhoid or cholera. Kim has made some friends in camp, including a professor who helps him when he steals a jacket and is followed. Sam thinks about going to Nairobi to make his own way, but when his mother becomes ill and a kerosene stove sets some tents on fire, he works with Kim to get water tanks brought to the camp. It's not an easy process, and the professor helps the children apply for them. Once the tanks are obtained, it's necessary to build cement platforms for them and find a way to get them filled with water. None of this is easy, because the men who sell water are not happy about losing their businesses, and threaten to destroy the tanks. Kim is proud of himself for working to better his community, but when the family's church in Eldoret builds them a house, he and his mother and sister return to their town.
Strengths: This was an unsettling but important look at life in a displacement camp. From living in tents and having to hunt for water, there are lots of details that readers in the US will find are new to them. Like Bajaj's Thirst, this shows how something we take for granted in the US, clean running water, can be hard to come by in certain situations. It was great to see Sam and Kim identify a need and work to fill it. The school was interesting too, and the character of the professor, who wears a suit every day. Kim's resilience in the face of trauma and harrowing living situations is heart warming, and I was especially glad that Dr. Tabitha was around for the children.
Weaknesses: I wish there had been more information about why Kim's family was targeted, and what caused the post election violence. If I don't know about this historical event, most of my children will need this information to fully understand the story. I also would have liked to see more of Kim's life before the attack portrayed.
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who want to know what life is like in other countries. I enjoyed Ochieng's Playing a Dangerous Game, and this would be a great book to read alongside Hughes' similarly named Displaced or Senzai's Escape from Aleppo to help young readers understand what it is like to lose a home and have to live in a displacement camp.