When Stars are Scattered
Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed’s When Stars are Scattered tells Mohamed’s story of growing up in a Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Omar and his younger brother Hassan escaped Somalia when his family’s farm was attacked during the ongoing civil war. They watched as their father was shot and have no way of knowing if their mother survived. The young boys are cared for by Fatuma, an older single woman in the camp. The book focuses on the long pause of their journey. After fleeing the war, they remain stuck in Kenya with no certainty for their future. Hassan is non-verbal, giving Omar additional responsibility. Omar attends school in the hope that moving forward with education will increase his opportunities as he grows, but there are no guarantees in the refugee camp. Each time the reader believes that Omar and Hassan’s lives will move forward, they’re disappointed with more roadblocks and uncertainty.
Omar Mohamed’s story in the refugee camp ends with him moving to the United States. While many Western readers may see this as a happy ending, the text resists the simplicity of a happy ending. The United Nations helps them navigate the process of immigration, but it takes years. Teachers and white NGO workers try to make the boys’ lives easier, but Omar frequently wonders about how much trust he should put in them. White journalists report on the problems of the camps, but leave the communities without seeming to care about those they film. When Omar and Hassan travel to the USA, they must leave Fatuma, their foster mother, and their community behind to start again in a country that they don’t know. Mohamed makes clear that while he and his brother benefited from these programs, there are so many others who are left in overcrowded refugee camps with little hope for a change.
The book is intended for a young adult reader and the cartoonish style reflects that. Victoria Jamieson’s background with the comic Roller Girl makes her work a natural fit with the younger audience. Additionally, Omar’s experience is framed with him as a young boy. That being said, the book resonates with a much larger audience - like much of the current young-adult genre. The book asks readers to emphasize this less familiar experience and think about how education and religion function to create community in places where people are stopped along their journey between their homes and somewhere unknown. The visuals also contribute symbolism to the text, giving older readers plenty of work to do in analyzing how meaning and emotion are communicated within the text.
