When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

I first read When Stars Are Scattered in sixth grade, because it was on the Rebecca Caudill Young Reader’s Book Award list. It’s inspired by Omar Mohamed’s real life story. When I first read it, I thought it was pretty good, but now that I have more appreciation for the deep themes inside the book, I love it even more.

When Stars Are Scattered is narrated by Omar, an adolescent Somalian refugee. He lives in a refugee camp called Daadab, with his younger brother, Hassan. Hassan has a disability that limits his ability to speak (he can only say one word), and he sometimes has seizures. Hassan is also the only blood-related family Omar has left; their father was killed in Somalia, and their mother has not been found. The book follows Omar’s day-to-day life in the refugee camp as they hope and pray for a better life. The fact that it’s narrated by Omar and not in third person gives the reader a unique window into his frustrations, worries, complicated emotions as a refugee.

This book contains some really important themes, such as having empathy for others and appreciating what you have, even when things are at their worst. I would also definitely qualify this book as a coming-of-age novel – when the book starts, Omar is 11, but by the time it ends, he is almost 18. This book deals with all the messy teenager emotions, such stress from family and school matters, jealousy, intense anger and frustration. At the end of the book, you can really see how much Omar has grown, even from the tone of his voice when narrating. There are so many more powerful themes in this book in addition to these, but this post would be way too long if I listed them all!

One thing to mention is that When Stars Are Scattered is a graphic novel. Some people think that graphic novels aren’t “real” books, and that the pictures mean that there is less plot to the story. But that’s just not true, especially for this book. The pictures really help tell the story – in addition to just showing what’s happening in the story, the pictures actually depict the emotions that Omar is feeling. For example, when Omar is describing a “darkness” (pent up frustration) growing inside of him on page 206, there is a picture of him sitting in a dark place, with his head in his hands. This scene didn’t actually happen, but it’s how Omar felt at the time. Sometimes pictures say things that words cannot.

One thing I didn’t like was that this book actually ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. But since it’s inspired by a real life story, you can read the “Afterword” to find out what happened to real-life Omar and Hassan after the book ended, which provides a nice closure to the story. Overall, I would honestly recommend this book to everyone. It’s stuck with me since I first read it, and I’m sure it will for you, too.

-Arshia