Shif and Bini are best friends. They challenge each other to chess, excel at school and stand up for each other. Neither boy has a father in their lives, their mothers work and take care of them the best they can. When soldiers start arriving in their town, Shif's mother knows what's about to happen. The boys are going to be "recruited" to military school - a loose code word for forced labour and confinement. Desperate to save Shif, his mother tries to smuggle him out of the country but fails. Shif and Bini then find themselves locked in a shipping container in the desert with other poor souls the military deems to be dangerous. The conditions are horrendous, freezing at night and boiling hot during the day, they are allowed out only for a short walk around the camp. Anyone who speaks up or acts against the soldiers' orders is beaten or taken to the dreaded punishment container. Exhausted, malnourished and terrified, the boys hatch a plan to escape with the help of the older men in their container. They know the border is only a few kilometres away, they know that if they can reach the border their chances of survival rise from 0% to "just slightly above zero." With the certainty that they won't see their families again, Shif and Bini decide to escape the containers and make a run for it. What follows is a gruelling survival story. We're never told what country Boy 87 takes place in, but it's a refugee story that many people endure. Shif's tale is devastating, and Fountain tackles the grief and guilt he suffers through with simple yet brilliant writing. If you're a fan of Refugee by Alan Gratz or the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or The Bone Sparrow, this is the book for you, I highly recommend it for ages 10 and up!
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