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@katiecouric : I LOVED THIS BOOK! Clemantine Wamariya escaped the Rwandan genocide when she was six and traveled with her older sister through seven countries over six years before coming to the United States. During a time when refugees are so often “otherized” and dehumanized, Clemantine’s story is the story of those who are forced to leave everything behind. She writes, “We walked for hours, until everything hurt, not toward anything, just away. We rubbed the red-brown mud and eucalyptus leaves in our bodies so we could disappear. Prickers grated my ankles. We walked up and over and around and down, so many hills. We heard laughing and screaming and pleading and crying and then cruel laughing again. I didn’t know how to name the noises....but without words my mind had no way to define or understand the awful sounds, nowhere to store them in my brain. It was cold and green and wet and the bushes and my legs were shaking and eyes, so many eyes.” (Clementine was six years old at the time) “It’s strange, how you go from being a person who is away from home to a person with no home at all. The place that is supposed to want you has pushed you out. No other places take you in. You are unwanted, by everyone. You are a refugee.” This is a story of courage, resolve, brutality, but ultimately triumph over the most unimaginable fear and suffering. It is also about surprising acts of kindness and generosity and about recovering, actually really creating your identity from the scar tissue of recurring trauma that never really goes away. Thank you Clementine, for sharing your harrowing, profoundly moving and ultimately uplifting journey with the world. Now I want to meet you and your sister Claire! And thank you Tom Bernstein for recommending! Clemantine, I love my followers and I hope they read your wonderful book! ❤️ 🌍 PS if you have any books you’ve loved reading this Summer, please give me your recommendations! 😊 (sorry for the long post, I got carried away! I guess I think I’m Michik