This began as a connected series of comic strips that appeared in the New York Times. It was later turned into a book with many more strips after winning the Pulitzer. It's about a real family of Syrian refugees who came to America the same day Trump won the election in 2016. That however is not the main focus. It's about the family itself and how they had to quickly acclimate to life in Connecticut. Learning English, sending the kids to school, finding a job so they could support themselves, etc. It was very interesting to see their fears, both justified and imagined and how they dealt with it. I think it's always a good thing to be able to step in someone else's shoes and be able to see just how good we have it in the U.S. and at the same time see some of our failures from an outsider's perspective.

A really well-done and informative book about a refugee family from Syria. This is succinctly done and would be accessible for ages 13+ (depending on emotional intelligence).

This is a nonfiction graphic novel that follows a Syrian refugee family who lands in the US on the eve of Trump's rise to power and showcases the family's journey as it adjusts to a new life in the midst of rising hatred and islamophobia. Told from different perspectives, the graphic novel captures the family's impressions and struggles. This is a perfect recommendation for my students who have absolutely no clear understanding of what others go through to escape war (or any hardship for that matter), how difficult it is to move to a new country (not always as glamourous as Hollywood makes it to be), and how helping others and showing kindness makes a difference.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I think this is a very valuable story for everyone to read. It didn’t particularly work for me and my reading taste, but I see it’s value overall.

A heartbreaking true story, beautifully written with empathy and care for the real life characters. A great addition to a graphic novel collection.

This is a very interesting graphic novel about a refugee family who flees Syria right around the time of the 2016 presidential election. It really resonated with me because that is just about the same time that my husband, Ahmed, was trying to leave Egypt and come to America.... but then the borders closed.

I found myself drawn into the world of the characters, wondering what would happen next as they tried to make a safe new home for themselves but found that different, very difficult challenges still remained even once they made it to the USA.

One thing that really struck me was the fact that one of the main characters actually misses Syria even more once he has been in America and subjected to the harassment some hateful people direct toward immigrants. He missed his home, despite how much he was suffering there. It's heartbreaking.

My review for Shelf Awareness is here: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html#m16706

The review was also cross-posted to Smithsonian BookDragon: http://smithsonianapa.org/bookdragon/welcome-to-the-new-world-by-jake-halpern-illustrated-by-michael-sloan-in-shelf-awareness/

Absolutely heart wrenching and 3ye opening account of a Syrian refugee family moving to America and the struggles they face along the way. I think my only regret is that it wasn't longer and didn't dive deeper. I appreciated the interspersed flashbacks and how they connected to current moments, lending context to each person's reactions or behavior. It's a story that all Americans should know and empathize with and one that needs to be on school shelves across the nation.

This book left me with no words. I wasn't really cognizant of the fact that this is a TRUE story until I got to the afterwords. All I can say is wow. It is not easy to step into someone else's shoes when one has no concept of what the other is going/has gone through. This graphic novel helps to show those who live perhaps more comfortably not to take it for granted and to be more inspired to help others in need.

I had to fill out a doctor's form earlier this week and one spot to be filled in was "race". I put "human". It doesn't matter what we look like, what language we speak, what we worship, we are ALL human beings, with hearts and minds and thoughts and feelings. We are all worthy of dignity and respect and basic rights. We all want to be safe with our loved ones, without having to worry if we can have the basics, such as food, shelter, clean water, etc.

This book was nothing short of amazing and I will be recommending it to just about everyone who walks into our store. Such a good book with such an important story to tell. 5, we can do better for all humankind, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company/Metropolitan Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

A captivating true story of two families fleeing Syria and finding refuge in the US right as Trump wins the 2016 election. There are a few gaps or time jumps that were a little jarring, but the overall story is well worth a read.

Learning how and why people become refugees and the reasons for their need for a place to live is an important lesson to learn. It's never easy to assimilate into a new world. This story captures the family's experiences in navigating school, work, and trying to stay true to themselves.

Loved this story! You following a Syrian family from their home to the United States. Thought bubbles include how they are feeling as they are navigating this new world. I especially loved the afterword that gives an update on the family. Beautiful.

A poignant, but hopeful look into the lives of a family fleeing Syria as refugees in the United States. My heart goes out to this and other refugee families who have come to the US in hopes of a better life. This novel does a great job of telling their story, but finished quite abruptly. Aside from that, it was a wonderful read that I highly recommend.

'Welcome to the New World' by Jake Halpern with illustrations by Michael Sloan is a non-fiction graphic novel of one Syrian family as they immigrate to the US on the eve of the 2016 election.

Ibrahim Aldabaan and his immediate family flee Syria after Ibrahim escapes from prison. All the haste means they have to leave other family behind. Arriving at JFK on November 8th, 2016, they land in a world where the rest of their relatives are unable to come to the states because of a Muslim ban.

Their new world offers many challenges, like learning a new language an culture to finding work. Add to that the kind of fear of Muslims that some citizens have and you have a pretty tense story.

I really liked this story, expanded from a New York Times Pulitzer-winning graphic story. The illustrations are kind of rough sketches but add a nice touch to this true story.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

Thank you, Netgalley, for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I have to admit that it was hard to rate this book. I loved the story and that it is based on true events and persons. I loved hearing the characters' story and see the events from their perspective. However, I have to say that, in particular in the beginning, this graphic novel was very confusing. Maybe it was because this is a graphic novel. I was missing some context and "world building." You are thrown directly into the events and there is not much background story to this GN. I think what also made the story a bit confusing for me at times was that Ibrahim and his dad looked so much alike and sometimes I had a hard time telling who was saying something in that particular situation. Later on, it was a little easier because of the overall storyline, but in the beginning when we learn about the family and their journey to the United States, it was hard to keep these two apart.

Overall, this is a story we all should know! Seeing the events before and after the election in 2016 was both heartbreaking and enlightening. I'm not a Muslim and learned a lot about their perception of our world.

This started off as an interesting read but the black and white art style wasn't my favorite and I think it could have been better.

Welcome to the New World by Jake Halpern and Michael Sloan is the coolest journalism piece I have ever seen in my life. When I first began reading, it reminded me of George Takei’s ’They Called Us Enemy’ in its raw storytelling using majority black and white illustrations.

This nonfiction graphic novel follows the story of a refugee family who fled the civil war in Syria to make a new life in the United States. This family, unfortunately, arrived the day Donald Trump becomes president and the US growth in racism and islamophobia.

The beauty of this novel is not just the moment in time the story took place, but how it was told through the perspective of different family members. Children being excited about their new life where they can have their own rooms and live that teenager life they see in popular media. The parents, on the other hand, are anxious for a chance for a better life but guilty for leaving part of the family behind.

This story really sang to me because I too am an immigrant to the USA. Similar to children in the book, I didn’t have much choice, but it changed my life. One particular element that I enjoyed and made me remember my childhood is the language barrier one faces when moving to the United States. Obviously, the children in the novel picked up English quickly (much like I did), but the struggle of the parents learning English reminded me of my parents. Even to this day, my parents sometimes face challenges due to language barriers which Halpern and Sloan were able to articulate in the panels so smoothly without making fun of the language barrier.

Halpern and Sloan showed the perspective that the family that the immigrant left behind creates this image of ‘Oh, you live in the USA? You must be rich.’ Those scenes hit home, and it a struggle every migrant has to face. The Aldabaan’s soon found themselves not only figuring how to keep themselves financially afloat but having to also worry about sending money back to their families in Jordan because they were now ‘rich Americans’.

This graphic is raw and intimate. It handles the immigrant experience so tastefully without sugarcoating the struggles and joys a family goes through. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to further understand the immigrant experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

This comic made me feel so much for the family, their many difficulties, all the things they went through, only to suffer more, in different ways. a Hard but necessary read

3.75

I was especially glad to have read this in the Time of Quarantine because it affected how I experienced the part where our main characters - a Syrian family - stay sequestered in their nice middle class home in Homs, Syria as bombs explode around them, agents of Assad roam the streets making arrests, and their food and money supplies dwindle. The feeling many of us have had of fear and anxiety and feeling trapped in the time of COVID are valid feelings, but this graphic novels shows how the Aldabaan family - and so many more like them - had those feelings amplified to the nth degree.

I think many of us have the image of refugees as tattered and destitute, but rarely do we have the image of what their lives looked like before horror befell them. Only a small part of the graphic novel is about this family's Before as the main thrust of the book is about their attempts to adapt to live in Connecticut, but it was the Before parts that really stuck with me the most.

I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, or if the fact that this graphic novel was originally serialized on NYT, but the pacing of the Aldabaan's story in America seemed really fractured and jumpy. Was that intentional to give the feeling of how the family felt? I'm not sure, but I would have preferred a more cohesive narrative, or perhaps a focus from the POV of one of the family members.

The notes at the end of the book about the process the creators developed for this ambitious project were super interesting. I especially found it interesting that one of the creators showed the family Persepolis to give them an idea of what the project could look like. Persepolis covers some of the same ground as this book, but because it comes from Satrapi's unique perspective it was far more cohesive and compelling, at least to me.

Even though I completely intellectually understand how hard things must have been for this family I had a hard time feeling emotionally connected the story...until I got to the final three pages where some artwork by the mother of the family - Adibaah Aldebaan - were included. Looking at her evocative art, I started sobbing. I hope that someday she is in a place where she could make a graphic novel of her own.


Thank you to Henry Holt and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is truly an amazing piece of journalism. It's reminiscent of Maus and Persopolis in today's age, showing "everyday Americans" the struggles refugees go through. It truly opened my eyes; I had only vaguely known about what's happening in Syria before reading this and now I am ready to join an immigrant welcoming service. The art is creative and a great way to push the story along. This book is incredibly clever. I would recommend it for all Americans to read to understand another's perspective.