The reader quickly learns that the life of a migrant is a dangerous routine of work, hide, and sleep in order to get up and avoid detection the next day. Ebo, Kwame, Sisa, Uncle Patrick, Rozak, Penn, and Cammo. This 122 page graphic novel by was written by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin with the images drawn by Giovanni Rigano.Ī small cast of characters make this book an easy, yet dramatic read for students learning about immigration and Africa. A map, a note from the creators, and a brief black and white interview with Helen, a refugee who actually survived a similar journey, will be included in the bound book.Illegal is the story of Ebo, a young boy from Ghana who journeys across Africa to Tripoli where he hopes to migrate to Europe and reunite with his older sister Sisi and his older brother Kwame who have already left home. Readers may suspect a benevolent authorial hand at work in Ebo’s knowledge of what to do in almost any heretofore unknown situation, in his ability to sing his way out of trouble, and in his lucky breaks at finding his brother in Africa and his sister in Europe, but most will agree that luck plays a significant role in determining who reaches shore alive. Rigano’s paneled artwork ably conveys the unforgiving land- and seascapes the migrants traverse as well as the surreal passage of time as it switches from long days adrift and brief, violent encounters ashore. There’s still tragedy to come, though, and Ebo faces unbearable loss before he’s delivered to a refugee center and ultimately into the arms of his sister. It is on the leaky, overcrowded inflatable raft that the “Now” plot thread unwinds, as fourteen hapless refugees run out of food and water and, finally, hope, only to be saved by a ship.

The graphic novelization may be fictional, but the details are heartbreaking and convincing, as Ebo schmoozes his way onto a bus sells antiseptic wipes that fell off the back of a truck in Agadez, Niger reunites with Kwame and takes off northward across the desert with shady traffickers and finally, in Tripoli, secures a place on a boat bound for Italy. Ebo couldn’t wait, and readers piece together his route and his resourcefulness in securing passage with no money to his name. In narration that moves between “Then” and “Now,” twelve-year-old Ghanaian refugee Ebo recounts his harrowing flight from his village on the heels of his older brother, Kwame, who left to get a toehold in Europe, where he hoped to find their older sister, get work, and send for Ebo.

Illegal by eoin colfer