COLLISION

Two ships collide on the Welland Canal, which connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario; one of them holds a shipping container with refugees inside—and not all of them survive.

Thirteen-year-old Daniel Sullivan’s mother is an ER nurse and his father is a police detective, so when the accident occurs near his small Ontario town, he spends the night at his grandfather’s while his parents respond to the emergency. The next day, Dad drops Daniel at the hospital to deliver a change of clothes for his exhausted mom. There, Daniel helps one of the survivors, a teenage boy who collapses in a hallway. Bol, a Dinka-speaking Black boy from South Sudan, and Daniel, who’s Irish Canadian, become fast friends, sharing their cultures with one another despite their language barrier. The presence of the refugees, who come from a wide variety of countries, attracts some negative attention, including xenophobic protests. Dad uses information Bol provides to help figure out the story behind the people in the shipping container, and the Sullivans strive to protect Bol and keep the rising tensions in town from boiling over. This heartwarming story is told from the first-person perspective of sensitive and kind Daniel. The accessible text naturally interweaves historical context showing parallels to centuries of migration by people in search of a better life.

A timely story that shows the humanity we share and the irrationality of bigotry and hatred.