Is The Bone Sparrow Based On A True Story?

I have not read any true stories of children in detention camps but Zara Fraillon has written a brilliant novel about a boy, Subhi, who is living in an Australian immigration camp with his mother and brother. While Subhi’s experiences are not ‘true’ his life in the detention camp is vividly portrayed and his plight evokes emotions and anger at the injustices he suffers. His friendship with Jimmie, an outsider, brings hope into Subhi’s life and while a work of fiction, the book draws on many real life stories of children in detention camps around the world and of the experiences of many refugees. The Bone Sparrow brings to life the plight of many children living in the worst of circumstances.

So often children are depicted as fragile and weak; Fraillon has gone to so much trouble to portray a child strong in the face of horror. His friendship with the wild boy Jimmie is also very real and authentic. Of course the two characters are fictional but the situations in which they find themselves are not and often go unreported. I am thinking of the current Rohingya crisis as well as reports from Nauru of children in detention. The title of this wonderful book, The Bone Sparrow, is also a real term used to describe a particular stage in the development of a bird’s wing. A bone so fragile yet crucial to the bird’s flight in the future. That is how I feel Fraillon has portrayed child refugees – so fragile yet determined to survive against all odds. This book is a love letter to the voices of refugee children that have not been heard yet, written in a way that is accessible to a middle grade reader but in no way sugars the horror of what is happening to these children.