• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

Finalist for the IODE Violet Downey Book Award

Samira is only nine years old when the Turkish army invades northwestern Persia in 1918, and she and her parents, brother and baby sister are driven from their tiny village. Taking only what they can carry, they flee into the mountains, but the journey is so difficult that only Samira and her older brother, Benyamin, survive. When Samira finally arrives in a refugee camp, it is her friendship with another orphan, Anna, that pulls her out of her sadness. And when the two girls are given a toddler named Elias to care for, they form a new kind of family.

Over the years the children are shunted from one refugee camp to another, from Persia to Iraq and back again, and finally end up in an orphanage, where it seems that they will live out their childhood. Then a new orphanage director arrives -- Susan Shedd, a woman whose authority and energy Samira has never seen before.

And Samira’s respect turns to amazement when Miss Shedd decides that she will take the three hundred children back to their home villages to make new lives for themselves. It will be a journey of three hundred miles, through the mountains, and it will be made on foot.

Celia Barker Lottridge is a writer and storyteller who has written several highly acclaimed children's books, including Ticket to Curlew (winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and the Geoffrey Bilson Historical Fiction Award), Berta: A Remarkable Dog (nominated for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, Horn Book starred review) and Stories from the Life of Jesus (Publishers Weekly starred review). She wrote Home Is Beyond the Mountains after hearing her mother's stories about growing up in Persia and after reading letter's written by Celia's aunt, Susan Shedd. Born in Iowa and raised in the United States, Celia now lives in Toronto.

Celia Barker Lottridge's profile page

• Commended, CCBC Choices
• Commended, CCBC Best Books for Kids & Teens
• Short-listed, IODE Violet Downey Book Award

My top pick for an all-engrossing new novel...

Toronto Star

[A] triumphant story.

School Library Journal

Based on the experiences of the author’s aunt, the story tells the horrific history of the Assyrian and Armenian refugees through indelible specifics...

Booklist

Home is Beyond the Mountains

It is 1918 and the Turkish army is moving in the direction of the Assyrian village of Ayna in northern Persia. Samira and her family are forced to flee their home in search of the safety offered by the British army who are fighting the Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire in the last months of the First World War. The arduous trek through the mountains leads to the death of many and leaves Samira and her brother, Benyamin, the sole survivors in their family. When they finally arrive at a refugee camp, many orphaned children are placed together and Samira meets Anna. Their friendship gives them strength and, when they are asked to care for a toddler named Elias, they form a new kind of family.

They spend many years in a series of orphanages in Iraq and southern Persia – until a new director, named Susan Shedd, announces a plan to take the children back to their home villages to find surviving family members. It’s a 300-mile journey and the children will have to travel by foot. Having survived the journey once before, however, the children work together in family groups and survive what most thought would be an impossible journey.

Although many of the characters in this novel are fictional, the story of the journey the orphans undertook is based on fact. As part of her extensive research, author Celia Barker Lottridge used the letters of her aunt (the real Susan Shedd) and others. Lottridge tells a moving story of the immense difficulties these children faced as they fled from their homes and then, years later, returned. As you read this story, you become deeply connected to these characters as the author adeptly reveals different aspects of their personalities. Appropriate for students in the late junior and intermediate grades, this story will hold students attention from beginning to end.

Home is Beyond the Mountains

Forced to flee from their home in Iran after World War I, Samira and Benyamin bounce from one orphanage to another. When Samira befriends Anna, they take Elias, an energetic toddler, into their care. It’s not until they meet orphanage director, Susan Shedd, that Samira’s dream of returning home is realized. This story is based on a true event.