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This song titled "A Safe Place To Land" by Sara Bareilles and John Legend connectes to Refugee because it tells about how people have to take risks and deal with challenges, hoping things will get better, and that's exactly what people have to do in Refugee. The characters in Refugee take a risk by leaving there homeland, and they have to go through the struggles of leaving. For example, Mahmoud has to deal with sleeping outside while waiting for his boat, and once on the boat, he has to be squished and deal with hard rain. Isabel deals with the hard waving and the fact that she now has to medicine on board, even a storm is coming. Josef has an insane, paranoid father who thinks everything is a Nazi trap. He also has to deal with a few Hitler supporters on board the ship that is supposed to give Jews freedom. These are just a few examples of how the characters in Refugee deal with struggles while trying to be free.

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Sara Bareilles - A Safe Place to Land (Feat.John Legend)//Lyrics

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Paragraph on researched non-fiction topic related to Refugee -Ava

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Paragraph on researched non-fiction topic related to Refugee -Ava

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See paragraph here

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How Many Refugees Came to the United States from 1933-1945? - Americans and the Holocaust - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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How did US immigration law affect people hoping to escape Nazi Germany and enter the United States? Learn how many people were able to leave Europe, how many people remained on the waiting list, and how immigration to the United States changed over time.

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Topic: How Setting Affects Character
The setting affects all 3 characters because their conflicts all come from the setting. The author made the settings so important to the story because he wanted to raise the stakes in way that was very impactful.

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(Small spoiler warning!!) Refugee Theme - Ava 

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(Small spoiler warning!!) Refugee Theme - Ava 

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See Refugee Theme Here

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Have you ever wondered what a refugee is? In the book Refugee, the three main characters Joseph, Isabel, and Mahmoud are all caught up in different wars, in different time periods. This forces them to become refugees by fleeing their homes with nothing to help them. I think this is a really good book with lots of suspence and action. I would reccomend this book because it has something for everyone.

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I chose the song stronger for my creative connection because it sings about overcoming challenges and how you can go through hard times and still be strong. This is exactly what happens in Refugee where they have to stay strong and go through hard times at the same time.

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Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) [Official Video]

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I chose the song "Rise" By: Katy Perry for my creative connection to "Refugee"

I chose this song because it talks about believing that you can overcome challenges, which I think is apart of the theme of "Refugee". In addition, it talks about the fight that the singer has to go through to rise to the challenge. This relates to "Refugee" because all of the characters have to fight to rise to their challenge.

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IN this article, it talks about how in sydney australia, they made a law where refugees could seek medical help and they started to help refugees. I chose this article because it talks about the medical risks that refugees have to face due to them having to flee their homes.

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The government called the policy, enacted just 10 months ago, a "back door" to let refugees into the country. Human rights advocates denounced the repeal as shameful.

A July rally in Sydney, Australia, calling for humane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. Credit... Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

SYDNEY, Australia - The Australian Parliament on Wednesday repealed a law that had allowed refugees and asylum seekers being held offshore to seek emergency medical care in Australia, a reversal that human rights advocates denounced as cruel and shameful.

The vote, which came 10 months after the law was enacted, was the latest example of the Australian government's hard-line stance on border protection, a policy it has maintained even as the United Nations has condemned it for detaining asylum seekers who were intercepted at sea indefinitely, on islands in the Pacific.

"This was always a law that was about getting people here through the back door, and today we've closed that back door," Peter Dutton, the minister for home affairs, told reporters in Canberra, the capital. He added that it had undermined efforts to resettle refugees in the United States under a deal struck in 2016.

The independent senator who cast the decisive vote to repeal the measure, Jacqui Lambie, said it would return decision-making power to lawmakers from doctors, whose approval was required for a medical transfer.

"You can take advice from doctors, but doctors aren't elected. They aren't accountable to the public," Ms. Lambie told the Senate as the repeal passed, 37 to 35.

Physicians' groups had strongly supported the medical evacuation law, saying it upheld fundamental rights to health care.

The law, which was narrowly approved in February after a campaign by doctors, lawyers and rights advocates, allowed detainees on the islands to come to Australia for medical treatment or assessment if the transfers were approved by two doctors and the home affairs minister.

About 170 people have filed applications to be transferred under the law, and more than 130 have been evacuated. About 500 are still being held in the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Since the Australian government enacted a policy in 2013 barring anyone intercepted at sea from setting foot in Australia, more than 3,000 people have been held on the islands, where their living conditions have been described as dire.

Twelve detainees have died since 2014. A coroner said in 2018 that a faster medical transfer could have prevented the death of Hamid Khazaei, an Iranian asylum seeker who suffered from a leg infection. There have been no deaths since the medical evacuation law was enacted.

Dissenting lawmakers said the law's repeal would compound the detainees' despair. "The last shred of hope for people we know were suffering in those offshore hellholes was knowing they were getting medical care - and now that's gone," said Richard Di Natale, the leader of the Greens party.

Detainees called the move a devastating blow. Shamindan Kanapathi, a Sri Lankan detainee in Papua New Guinea, said on Twitter that refugees' lives would "again be in the hands of politicians who have shown they will deliberately withhold medical treatment from people who desperately need it."

Jana Favero, a director at the Asylum Seeker Resource Center, said that many of the people who had been evacuated suffered from multiple medical conditions, and that many more sick detainees remained. "This is not about left and right, it's about right and wrong," she said. "Yet again, the government is playing politics with people's lives."

Ms. Lambie, the senator who cast the deciding vote, had initially expressed sympathy for the refugees' plight but ultimately voted for the repeal, saying she had negotiated a secret agreement with the conservative government on the issue. The government denied any such deal.

New Zealand has offered to help resolve the crisis by accepting 150 refugees a year, though the Australian government has so far refused the proposal.

On Wednesday, the Kurdish-Iranian writer Behrooz Boochani, a prominent former detainee, applied for asylum in New Zealand, Australian news media reported. Mr. Boochani was allowed to leave Papua New Guinea last month for a literary festival in New Zealand.

Under a deal reached with President Barack Obama late in his second term, 654 refugees have been resettled in the United States, with 251 in the provisional approval stage, Mr. Dutton said.

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Australia Revokes Medical Evacuations for Offshore Detainees

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The government called the policy, enacted just 10 months ago, a "back door" to let refugees into the country. Human rights advocates denounced the repeal as shameful. SYDNEY, Australia - The Australian Parliament on Wednesday repealed a law that had allowed refugees and asylum seekers being held offshore to seek emergency medical care in Australia, a reversal that human rights advocates denounced as cruel and shameful.

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Lauryn's Theme Paragraph (From The Choose One)

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Lauryn's Theme Paragraph (From The Choose One)

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I think that the theme of "Refugee" is "you will face challenges but you have to learn to overcome them". The reason why I think this is the theme is Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud all face large challenges, but in order to to succeed they have to learn to overcome them. Furthemore, this theme is important because a part of refuging is having to know how to take on a challenge.

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Lauryn's Informative Paragraph About Syrian Refugees Traveling To Slovakia

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Lauryn's Informative Paragraph About Syrian Refugees Traveling To Slovakia

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Imagine, your homeland getting destroyed. The homeland you have lived in as long as you can remember. Then having to go somewhere that is all new. Wouldn't it be devastating? Well, the 24 men they traveled from Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia in September 2015, know what this is like. Most of them were saying goodbye to their torn homes in Syria. These refugees are going through struggles just as the refugees do in "Refugee" by Alan Gratz. A lot of these refugees were separated from family and friends that they have in Austria. For instance, Following Syrian Refugees Into An Unwelcome Home Slovakia states we lost everything in this country, says Mahmood Aloka, 24, who came out from outside Damascus.  This is similar to "Refugee" they sacrificed a lot to be able to refugee, In addition, like Mahmoud, these refugees leave almost everything  at home. This is similar to Mahmoud because in the book it describes how Mahmoud family only brings a bag full of things, which was not all that they had at home.

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Lauryn's Non - Fiction Article Connection

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Lauryn's Non - Fiction Article Connection

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This article is about a family that is refugeeing from Daara, Syria to Dallas, Texas:
This relates to Refugee because this family refugees from Syria, which is where the character Mahmoud has to refuge from. In addition, like Mahmoud, this family had struggles in Syria, that forced them to flee to Dallas, Texas.

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By Alex Altman / Dallas | Video By Michael Kirby Smith

Faez al Sharaa was sure he was going to die.

He was walking to work in his hometown of Daraa, the southern Syrian city where the protests against President Bashar al-Assad first erupted. For young civilians like Faez, now 28, leaving the house in the spring of 2013 had become a game of Russian roulette. Dozens were dying each day in the civil war between Assad's forces and antigovernment insurgents. The ancient farming town of Daraa had become a grisly battlefield. Dissidents had disappeared. Children had been plucked off the streets for suspected anti-government activities, only to be tortured by authorities.

On that Tuesday morning in late March, Faez was confronted by a group of Syrian army soldiers. They were looking for a man who had been spotted with a handgun. Faez and three others were detained and accused of being terrorists. Standing at gunpoint, his hands in the air, he recalls feeling furious with himself for risking the solo walk to work. "We felt death upon us, and we accepted it," he says now. "I can't describe it in words."

He got lucky. At that moment, an old woman barreled into the street, begging the gun-toting soldiers to spare these men. They were her son, her nephew, her neighbors, the old lady pleaded. Faez had never seen the woman before. But the soldiers relented. The stranger saved his life.

By the time Faez returned home that night from his job at a healthcare company, he had resolved to flee Syria. He talked it over with his wife, informed his mother, and then reached out online to an underground group known for smuggling Syrians into Jordan. Again Faez was fortunate: the smugglers had space in a private car to carry him and his wife to the border the next day.

The couple packed their bags with clothing, photos from their wedding and a few keepsakes: a set of colored bowls they had received as a gift, a glimmering golden plate inscribed with the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith. The following morning, they walked out the door and left their life behind.

A Global Crisis

Now Faez is one of the lucky ones, a refugee who has been granted a new future in the United States. He tells the story of his family's two-year odyssey from his living-room couch in a Dallas suburb. His wife Shaza, also 28, fixes Arabic coffee in the kitchen. The couple's 14-month old daughter Sham toddles across the room. Baby Sara, 4 months old and an American citizen, beams from her rocker.

The al Sharaa family arrived in Dallas nine months ago. They have adjusted well to a bracing cultural transition. Faez and Shaza are picking up English. He has a steady job on the graveyard shift at a local Walmart, stocking shelves in the frozen section from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. They have a second-hand sedan and a new apartment, where bowls of fruit and ornaments from home brighten the shag carpeting and popcorn ceiling. Neighbors have been welcoming.

But there are notes of frustration in Faez's voice as he recounts the family's journey through an interpreter, Razan Ali, 22, who doubles as the family's resettlement case worker at the International Rescue Committee. When we met on Nov. 19, the U.S. House of Representatives had just voted by a wide margin to tighten oversight of the program that resettles Syrian refugees in the U.S., forcing top government officials to certify that each new arrival poses no security threat. Some 30 governors have objected to admitting new refugees in their states, including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican. Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, has promised to deport refugees who have already arrived, while increasing surveillance of American mosques and keeping watch lists of certain immigrant groups.

The backlash was driven by the discovery of a Syrian passport among the belongings of a member of the terrorist cell that attacked Paris on Nov. 13. It didn't matter that the document was later revealed as a likely forgery. An ugly strain of nativism, stoked by the prospect of a terrorist infiltrating the U.S. by posing as an asylee, is coursing through national politics, from the campaign trail to the U.S. Capitol. With fear spreading and solutions in short supply, the refugees have become a target, even though they are trying to escape violence and move on with their lives. The refugees, Faez says, have become "scapegoats."

Polls conducted since the Paris attacks show the majority of Americans oppose admitting refugees. Refugee advocacy groups worry the fear will lead to violence. Two days after Faez spoke with TIME, armed protesters-some with masks and tactical weapons-gathered outside a green-domed mosque in nearby Irving, Tex., to challenge what one sign decried as the "Islamization of America." Faez has been stunned by the response. "It shocked me, because America prides itself on diversity. It is a melting pot," he says. "Some are misinformed, or not informed, by what is going on in Syria."

Half of Syria's population of 22 million has been uprooted by the war between a tyrant and the terrorists of the Islamic State. Some 300,000 have been killed. More than 4 million Syrians have fled.

Syrian families have drowned when flimsy rafts capsized in the Mediterranean. Others perished on the treacherous overland journey through the Balkans. In August, 71 Syrian refugees suffocated in the back of a chicken truck abandoned alongside a highway in Austria; the dead included children as young as 1.

The burden of sheltering the refugees has fallen largely on Syria's neighbors, like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Wealthy nations in Northern and Western Europe have rolled out the welcome mat as well. Germany expects to take in some 800,000 Syrians in 2015, and France, in the wake of the bloodshed in Paris, announced it would admit another 30,000. By contrast, the U.S. has taken in only about 2,200 since the violence began in 2011. President Obama has called for the U.S. to welcome at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, though international aid groups and top Democrats like Hillary Clinton have called for the country to accept many more.

The irony of the backlash is that refugees like the al Sharaas are more scrutinized than virtually anyone entering the U.S. "The process is thorough and extensive, and no one is actually resettled unless their identity, background, motives, and affiliations have been ascertained beyond doubt," says international migration expert Maurizio Albahari, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. The initial vetting is conducted by the U.N.'s refugee agency, which usually refers the most vulnerable applicants to the U.S. At the top of the list are survivors of torture, victims of sexual violence, targets of political persecution, the medically needy, and single mothers with children.

Nine U.S. government agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Defense and the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center then conduct background checks of their own. It's "the most rigorous screening and security vetting of any category of traveler to the United States," says a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the policy. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security travel abroad to conduct in-person interviews with every applicant. Fingerprints and iris scans are matched against criminal databases. Biographical information such as past visa applications are scrutinized to ensure the applicant's story coheres. The process takes 18 to 24 months, and some 50% are rejected. "Short of swimming the Atlantic," I.R.C. vice president Jennifer Sime told a congressional panel Nov. 19, "the refugee resettlement program is the most difficult way to come to the U.S."

The Exodus

Faez knows this firsthand, though his family's journey was in some ways smoother than the average Syrian refugee experience. It began with a 90-minute hike to meet a smuggler's car. As he and his wife scampered through neighborhoods pocked by war, a missile crashed into a nearby building. "We could've been killed," Faez says. But they found their ride, which deposited them in a town on the porous border with Jordan. On the other side, a fleet of buses and trucks were waiting to shuttle fleeing families to relative safety.

Two days later they arrived at the Zaatari refugee camp, a makeshift city of 80,000 plagued by rape and violence. As the crisis deepens, the sprawling labyrinth has become the fourth-largest city in Jordan. Many asylees spend years here, waiting as the U.N.'s refugee agency registers them and completes the laborious process of resettling them abroad.

Shaza's relatives arranged to smuggle them out of the encampment and into the Jordanian capital of Amman, where they could stay with family. Faez found an off-the-books job with his old healthcare company, working the night shift to evade detection. The couple registered with the U.N. and began wending through a set of background checks. A first interview gave way to a second.

At first Sweden seemed like an option. The prosperous nation-a desirable location due to the benefits it offers-has born a heavy burden in the refugee crisis since its 2013 pledge to provide permanent residency to almost any Syrian refugee. With more refugees per capita than any other European nation, it is now buckling under the strains, with public housing limited and a political backlash brewing.

The al Sharaas were eventually informed Sweden was not accepting any more refugees. Following a third round of screening, the family was told they were now headed to Finland. Faez was excited about the plan after nearly two years in limbo. Life in Jordan was dismal. Locals were unfriendly. Without work authorization, his employer paid low wages, and he felt exploited. Promised aid didn't arrive. "My life there was very difficult," he says. "Our rights weren't respected." Then Finland fell through as well. A month later, the International Organization for Migration called to say the family were destined for the U.S.

Faez wasn't keen on the idea at first. "I didn't want to come to America," he says. It was so far from his old life, and he felt ill-equipped for the challenge, with few possessions, no money or language skills and a meager social safety net awaiting them. Among refugees, the U.S. is known for providing skimpier benefits than the nations of Europe. "In about two to three months, you're expected to be on your feet, to fend for yourselves," Faez says. "I didn't feel ready for that."

The al Sharaas finally left for Texas in February. They were now a family of three, with an infant daughter born in Jordan and another on the way. "I was scared," Faez recalls. It was his first time on an airplane.

A Reunion in Jeopardy

They touched down in Dallas after nightfall on Feb. 18. The family was shy and timid at first, recalls Daley Ryan, the deputy director of the IRC's office in Dallas. A caseworker brought them to an apartment the organization had rented for them. It was in a slightly run-down neighborhood, but as they gaped at the kitchen appliances they marveled aloud that this was all theirs.

At times the transition has been tough. The graveyard shifts put Faez on a nocturnal schedule. Shaza, who wears a hijab, has been slower to pick up English as she spends days in the apartment tending to her young children. But until recently, they had been struck by the depth of opportunities afforded them in the U.S., and by the sense that the country's creed of equality was reality, not just rhetoric.

"I go about my daily activities without any discrimination," Faez says. "When I apply for a job, I am treated fairly." The family is paying off their $1,300 one-way plane tickets to the U.S. in monthly installments, and found a new apartment in a safer neighborhood, which is decorated with a Sony flatscreen and remnants of home, like the golden plate adorned with one of the pillars of Islam: "There is no God but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God." The family found a local mosque and socializes with the small group of fellow refugees in the area.

Faez came to believe that the U.S. offered the chance for personal growth and prosperity for his children. He worked hard to improve his English, and has laid out a series of long-term goals, including a higher education degree. "I would like to make sure to provide for my wife and children," he says, "so they can live a happy life."

But in the aftermath of the Paris attacks, the political frenzy has upended their lives. In early December, six relatives from Syria are set to arrive in Dallas, placed there by the IRC to be close to the al Sharaa family. Abbott's vow to block the resettlement of new Syrian refugees in Texas now threatens to shatter the reunion.

Governors lack the authority to disrupt a federal program, but their opposition can make resettlement tricky. Last week a Syrian family destined for Indiana was rerouted to Connecticut because of Hoosier State Gov. Mike Pence's objections to the refugee program. "I'm very worried about my family," Faez says.

Asked what he would wanted to share with leery Americans, Faez had a simple message. "I want them to know the Syrian people are not terrorists," he says. "We are against ISIS. We don't support them. They are a criminal organization. Syrian citizens are the ones paying the price."

Video Editors: Kholood Eid and Andrew Hinderaker; Produced By Chelsea Matiash

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What It's Like To Be A Syrian Refugee In America

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By Alex Altman / Dallas | Video By Michael Kirby Smith Faez al Sharaa was sure he was going to die. He was walking to work in his hometown of Daraa, the southern Syrian city where the protests against President Bashar al-Assad first erupted.

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Part to whole
The author keeps Mahmoud different to show the other side for refugees

Isabel and Josef have very similar stories. Both leave on boats and face challeneges on the boat. With Mahmoud his story is more on the war side. For example, When Mahmoud had the flashbacks he was talking about how he lays low because of all of the things he lost to war. His bestfriend and his home. In conclusion, Mahmoud is in the book to show the other side of refugees

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Delan's Informative paragraph about refugees

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Delan's Informative paragraph about refugees

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Refugees are people who are forced to leave their country because of war or natrual disasters. There are many kinds of refugees from many different places. according to UNHCR Global trends report Turkey takes in the most refugees. The most refugees come from Afganistan Syria and South Suadan. In the book it really shows and outlines refugee everyday problems.

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This article is about refugees in general. This relates to refugee because it highlights the struggles of refugees, by statictics and important facts. Like all of the refugees and their struggles to find a home

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See Refugee Theme Here

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I connect this song to refugee because the song is about over coming challenges and rising up. In the book refugee all three characters have challenges they need to overcome

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Imagine Dragons - On Top Of The World (Official Music Video)

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See summary here