MULE CART

A young refugee girl leaves home amid the Armenian genocide in this picture book from the Corts.

The book opens on Anoosh traveling by mule cart with her mother and younger siblings toward Aleppo, Syria. They’re being forced to leave their home in Aintab, Turkey, to meet Anoosh’s father as World War I rages. Along the journey, Anoosh reflects on the home they had to abandon: everything from their beloved apricot tree to the porcelain doll left behind at the window. The Armenian language appears throughout the book, which adds a linguistic and cultural depth. Traditions such as reading coffee grounds sit alongside more difficult moments, like the family’s recollections of soldiers taking over their home. The prose is packed with both melancholy and hope as the protagonist comes to terms with leaving the family’s old life behind. At times, the creative spacing of the text appears awkward or creates an unnecessary lull in the tension, yet the haunting and beautiful illustrations balance these flaws out, especially a particularly well-rendered nocturnal scene of the family underneath the stars. A joyful reunion at the end ultimately circles back to the story’s main message to “always look for hope.” Though the story includes historical context and vocabulary at the end, the text could use more historical background, but it still offers a meaningful narrative introduction to Armenian history and culture.

A bold and engaging story that shows the hardships of displacement through a child’s eyes.