Some of Us Are Brave

Faruqi, Saadia. Some of Us Are Brave

February 10, 2026 by Quill Tree Books

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

It's the last week of summer vacation in Houston, Texas in 2017, and Yasir Manzoor wishes he were attending soccer camp instead of being a coach for younger kids, since his life plan is to become a professional player and help out his mother, who has struggled since his father's death. He's not thrilled to run into school bully Cody at the rec center, especially since Yasir really wants to beat him out for team captain in middle school. One of the kids Yasir is coaching is Omar, who is also Punjabi. Omar's sister Mona is in school with Yasir, and he considers her well-to-do. Mona, however, struggles to take care of Omar when her parents, college professors, go off to attend conferences and leave her in charge. Since her grandmother passed away, they get Mrs. Shabazz to stay with the children. Cody's father is a veteran who has been injured, and has had anger management issues, yelling at Cody and his mother, and occasionally locking Cody up in a shed outside. All three children have fears; Yasir almost drowned in the rec center pool a year ago, Mona is anxious about floods, which comes out in her artwork, and Cody is afraid of the dark. As Hurricane Harvey bears down on the area, they children all find themselves fending for themselves. Mrs. Shabazz has to go to work, and tells Mona and Omar to stay inside, Yasir gets stranded at the rec center and tells his mother that he will meet her after the center is evacuated, and Cody spends the night in a rec center outbuilding for some piece. As the storm intensifies, all of the children find themselves fighting the flood waters. Cody and Yasir take cover in the shed until it's clear it will soon be flooded, and they meet Mona and Omar, who have found a canoe. They all try to get to the local fire station, along with Killer, a dog that Cody has found. At the fire station, they meet Mr. Delgado, a retired fire fighter who volunteers at the center. He helps them contact their parents and get to the George R. Brown Convention Center. Throughout their adventure, the children have shared flood stories from different cultures, and Mona has drawn artistic representations of stories about characters such as Noah, Gilgamesh, and Olorun. When the storm abates, Mona's parents come back and end up staying with Yasir and his mother, while Cody's father seems to be coping better. There is a lot of clean up to be done, but the children have all harnessed their inner bravery to survive. 

Strengths: The author lives in Houston, and includes a note that while her home was not as badly affected by Hurrican Harvey, she saw how devastating the storm was to some areas of the city. I liked that the children were all separated from parents for reasons that made a fair amount of sense. The inclusion of soccer, and the prominence of the rec center in the lives of the children, both made the sense of community very strong. Cody has internalized his father's rants that "foreigners" are evil, and has been mean to Yasir because of these views, but when the two finally talk, he changes his mind. I loved that Omar looks up to Yasir; we don't see enough relationships between older and younger children in middle grade literature, and they can be quite powerful. The difference between eight year olds and twelve year olds is staggering. Mona's art, and the inclusion of different myths, added some different twists to a flood adventure story. The ending, with the characters having different amounts of damage to their homes, finished this story off nicely. 
Weaknesses: I had a number of books about Hurricane Katrina, but they have never circulated very well. It might be because many of them are longer; Philbrick's Wild Wave has been very popular, but it's much shorter. 
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoy storm related adventure books like Feldman's The Puttermans Are in the House, Courage's Storm Blown, or Dodson's Escape from Hurricane Katrina.