"Indispensable." -- Booklist (starred review)
Subhi is a refugee. He was born in an Australian permanent detention
center after his mother and sister fled the violence of a distant
homeland, and the center is the only world he knows. But every night,
the faraway whales sing to him, the birds tell him their stories, and
the magical Night Sea from his mother's stories brings him gifts. As
Subhi grows, his imagination threatens to burst beyond the limits of the
fences that contain him. Until one night, it seems to do just that.
Subhi sees a scruffy girl on the other side of the wire mesh, a girl
named Jimmie, who appears with a notebook written by the mother she
lost. Unable to read it herself, Jimmie asks Subhi to unravel her
family's love songs and tragedies that are penned there.
Subhi and Jimmie might both find comfort -- and maybe even freedom -- as
their tales unfold. But not until each has been braver than ever before
and made choices that could change everything.