Brief summary
Following an incident of domestic violence that will forever change their lives, 10 year old Aniyah and her younger brother Noah find themselves in foster care. We follow them on an adventure to London, as they try to find their mum, the brightest star in the sky.
My comments
Whilst it’s fun to read books about children going on grand fantasy adventures, overcoming impossibly dangerous scenarios in far-flung worlds, this book instead focuses on the inner strength of a child going through a harrowing experience at home. Onjali Q. Raúf takes the delicate subject of domestic violence, and handles it with all the sensitivity, warmth and sincerity that it needs.
As an intensely character-driven story, the settings in the book are not written in such a way that they jump off the page with colourful imagination. Instead, the settings are used to add gritty realism to the story, and they do this very well. Having lived in London, I can say Onjali Q. Raúf captures the raw beauty of the city through her descriptions of key aspects like the tube and the Royal Observatory. This made each location tangible, and as such, the story was much more believable.
‘And people with the biggest, brightest hearts never end up in the ground. They end up in the sky.’
Onjali Q. Raúf
The Star Outside My Window contains quite a few central characters, but they each feel authentic, with their own backstories and experiences. None of them feel like extras, and I expect everyone reading the book will find a different favourite. I can’t help but love Aniyah; she’s hurting, and I just wanted to reach in and give her a big hug.
I tend to prefer third person books over first person, but here first person was used to devastating effect in a way that I don’t think could have been achieved with third person. Seeing through Aniyah’s eyes we feel her innocence and the way it clouds her understanding of events, but with our adult experiences we are able to read between lines that she cannot yet see, and we want to protect her from the hurt to come. For children reading the book, they will likely share her lack of initial understanding and will therefore discover things as Aniyah does. It can make for difficult reading, but it feels necessary that books tackle these issues.
Class comments
I haven’t yet introduced this book to my class, and I think the way I will use it depends on what children I have at the time. I would not use the book for whole-class reading or for teaching about domestic abuse; I think it’s too sensitive a topic which needs to be covered very carefully, and a novel isn’t the best medium for such delicate teaching. As a book for my reading area though, it’s great. I hope no child ever goes through what Aniyah went through, but if a child in my class ever does go through a similar situation, then I hope it might enable them to seek help.
Themes
- Domestic violence, loss and bereavement.
- Friendship and family.
- Foster care and adoption.
- Hope and resilience.
Curricular links
- Space/astronomy.
- London (local area study).
- Abuse (health and wellbeing).
Points to consider in class
- As the central theme of the book, domestic violence and the loss of a parent features heavily, albeit sensitively and through the eyes of a child.
- Many children in the book are in foster care. Delicate parts of the process, such as finding out that you are going into foster care, are also shown.
- A child in foster care mentions that he does not see his sister anymore, as his sister finds the bad memories it brings back too difficult.
- A child talks of being given away by her mum, and another talks of their father leaving when they were a baby.
- There is discussion about the loss of a husband to cancer, and the illness of a child’s mum that resulted in them being present when their parent died.
As you can guess from the above list, this story can be very sad. I’ll admit I was reduced to tears by the end! It does deal with some of the darkest themes possible for a children’s book; however, Onjali Q. Raúf’s masterful use of language and tone does a fantastic job of making it accessible to children. It really opened my eyes to the situations so many children find themselves going through, and every classroom would benefit from having a copy.
