Spectacularly Beautiful. A Refugee's Story. Recommended for Ages 3 and up

Story by Lisa Lucas, pictures by Laurie Stein

'I want you to draw a memory. But not any memory. This one has to come from the place you were born', says the teacher Ms. Truong.
This is a common activity to get kids to express different emotions and to also discuss trauma or talk about different realities and histories.

Spectacularly beautiful is about Shahad's drawing - a pile of broken bricks and crabby looking faces.
She explains that those bricks in her drawing made her eye 'look like this...and my leg...like this' (we see two small scratches)

The teacher points out what's perfect in Shahad and helps her to see that too - the braids in her perfectly combed hair, for example.
Then Shahad asks the teacher - Do you think I'm beautiful?, to which she replies, 'I think you are spectacularly beautiful'.

On the last day of school, Ms. Truong announces that over the summer, she will be teaching children in a country that has a few problems. They will remind her of the girls and boys she is saying goodbye to.

After the summer, Ms. Truong returns with a scar of her own and asks Shahad if she is beautiful. 'I think you are spectacularly beautiful', is her reply.

This is a 'refugee story' about overcoming pain and trauma. Children need to feel loved, welcomed and yes, beautiful and perfect, despite their inner and outer scars. And when we give them this love and offer them open arms, that's what we will receive in return  - grateful, confident beings who exude the same warmth and happiness they receive.

The use of different colours for the children and teacher (purple, blue, green etc) and real pictures of a school and classroom give the book and story a sense of truth and connection. The 'fantasy' colours of the people allow kids reading this book to openly talk about painful things or sad memories without identifying a single country, ethnicity or folk.

All of the children seem to have an immigrant background and the names aren't the names one is accustomed to reading in picture books (Tim, Lucy, John, Lena, Pete, etc) - they are Trivien, Tuyet, Tierney and Shahad. On the one hand, one might argue it 'others' the reality of the child refugee or immigrant and places her in a parallel reality/society. Nonetheless, the stories of the children, through their drawings, show that no matter where you are from or what your story is, children are all the same - they like playing outdoors, riding their bikes, they hate eating the same food every day and they are sad when their homes are destroyed.

All in all, a noteworthy book because it manages to broach a sensitive topic- war, fleeing, trauma, loss of childhood, migration and a new home - with simplicity and love. Children need to feel loved and welcomed and need to be told they are beautiful too. Nonetheless, the book offers a closed world of refugees in a parallel classroom with no or little contact with other native groups. I believe minds and hearts can only be changed with the interaction and incorporation of these kids in a broader context. This may at first seem a daunting task since the refugee child's needs are initially more demanding. However, children have shown enormous resilience and empathy if exposed to each other under fair circumstances. This allows for learning and healing and building empathy.

Another dubious aspect in this book is the socialisation of girls to think they need to be physically beautiful in order to be acknowledged or accepted. A female child refugee is thus doubly othered - for sticking out as both physically different and female. However, the general message of empathy and focusing on what is positive in each human being is not altogether lost.