conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled Refugee Boy about Alem, London, Ethiopia with the genre: Teen & Young Adult, Literature & Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. They have a great few days togther until one morning when Alem wakes up in the bed and breakfast they are staying at to find the unthinkable. His father has left him. It is only when the owner of the bed and breakfast hands him a letter that Alem is given an explanation. Alem's father admits that because of the political problems in Ethiopia both he and Alem's mother felt Alem would be safer in London - even though it is breaking their hearts to do this. Alem is now on his own, in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council. He lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear from his father, and in particular about his mother, who has now gone missing...A powerful, gripping new novel from the popular the author
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a plot for a book titled Refugee Boy about Alem, London, Ethiopia with the genre: Teen & Young Adult, Literature & Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Refugee Boy: Alem is a refugee from Ethiopia.\nHis parents are both Eritrean and Ethiopian.\nAlem then escapes to England from a violent civil war in Badme, which at the time of the novel (2000/1999), was disputed to be either in Ethiopia or in Eritrea.\nIn 1991, five-year-old Alem and his father are in the capital of Eritrea, his mother\'s home country.\nWhen Alem is ten years old, he and his family move to Harar in Ethiopia, his father\'s country.\nIn Ethiopia, his father gets a better job within the postal service, but Alem\'s mother loses her job because the Ethiopian workers say they are "at war with Eritrea, so they will not work with someone from Eritrea".\nAlem\'s father is then told by his co-workers that he must leave his wife because she is Eritrean and therefore "the enemy".\nThe mother was held at point blank before pushed on the bus.\nAlem is a thief and is arrested.\nOne night the police break into Alem\'s home and force the family, along with other mixed families, onto buses going back to Eritrea.\nAfter returning to Eritrea the family begins to experience the same discrimination, and Alem is attacked and beaten at schoolThe father was held at point blank before pushed on the bus.\nAlem\'s father takes him to London, England, under the pretext of a holiday to celebrate his fourteenth birthday.\nThey stay in a hotel in Datchet, Reading, and his father takes Alem sightseeing in London.\nThey finish the day with an Amharic goodnight.\nThen, Alem wakes up and looks over to the empty bed beside him and thinks he is at breakfast, but he finds that he has left him alone with a letter.\nThe letter says that he and Alem\'s mother will continue to fight for peace with the organization EAST and that they hope one day Alem can rejoin them.\nmr Hardwick allows Alem to stay for a few days and on the final day he brings in the Refugee Council who send Alem to a children\'s home.\nHis time at the home is violent and disturbing as a rude boy Sweeny decides to beat him up and he tries to run away but ends up back at the home.\nHe is then moved to london and placed in a foster family (the Fitzgerald\'s).\nmr and mrs Fitzgerald are a professional foster family.\nRuth, their teenage daughter, seems unhappy with Alem.\nAlem returns from his first day at school, where he has made two friends, Robert and Buck, to discover a letter from his father indicating his mother has gone missing.\nAlem receives a letter from the Home Office rejecting his application for asylum.\nAn appeal date is set for 7 January 2000, where Alem meets Nicholas, his barrister, and charms the judge by wishing everyone a happy Christmas.\nAt the appeal a hearing date is set for 16 February.\nSoon after Christmas, Alem receives another letter from his father explaining that his mother has been killed and that his father will try to get Alem back.\nRuth, the foster family\'s daughter, provides solace for Alem.\nHis father soon turns up at his house and they go for dinner (spaghetti).\nThe following Monday, Alem comes home to find that his father had gone to the Home Office to submit his asylum application, but was arrested and taken to Campsfield Detention Centre.\nNicholas will also represent Alem\'s father and apply for their dank bail.\nBail is awarded, and Alem\'s father is put into a grimy hostel in Forest Gate, and it is revealed that both Alem\'s and his father\'s application for asylum will be heard together.\nOn 15 February Alem, his father, Nicholas and mrs Fitzgerald go to court.\nThe judge rejects the application for asylum on the basis that there are millions of Ethiopians and Eritreans unaffected by the war and that Alem is no longer without a family member to take care of him.\nThey decide they will appeal.\nThe fitzgeralds are but traces Robert, Buck and Asher decide to start a campaign though Alem\'s father is not initially pleased with the idea but agrees to go to the first meeting.\nAlem also finds out that he is no longer able to stay at the Fitzgeralds\' since he is no longer a ward of the state but has to move in with his father.\nAlem\'s father gives his blessing for Robert, Buck and Asher to start the campaign.\nHe moves in with his father and the campaign picks up pace.\nSeveral events including a dance and a street march are held.\nA petition with six thousand signatures is handed to the local MP.\nThe Monday following the march Alem receives a hero\'s welcome from his school, and a Positive Pupil Certificate from the Headmaster.\nAlem awaits his father at home with the certificate but instead his social worker comes to the door along with a police officer to inform him that his father has been shot and killed while leaving the London branch of EAST.\nAlem is returned to the Fitzgeralds\' and receives a letter with his appeal date for 27 March.\nFinally, Alem is awarded asylum.\nThe author then notes that the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments signed a peace treaty in London on 20 December 2000.