The Red Suitcase by Giles Baum and illustrated by Amandine Piu is a short children’s book meant to tackle depicting the various struggles and hardships that accompany the life of a refugee child. Using an adorable green dragon, the story follows him as he flees his now dangerous home and is thrown into the unknown of an entirely new and unfamiliar, though safer, home.

The biggest thing to note with the story that this book shows is that the full story of what is going on with this little dragon is actually pretty difficult to pick up on without the context of the book’s summary. As someone who does not know or understand what it is like to be a refugee, my hope, in the end, is that the subtle to me themes of the story would be clear to any young child with these experiences. In that sense, a book like this could be helpful in allowing those children to cope with the feelings that come alongside with living through such a traumatic event.

The artwork in this story could not be more perfect, in my opinion. It is both simple and complex where it needs to be, featuring just the right amount of cute and color. In general, I don’t think I have enough knowledge to fully determine the degree to which this is a great children’s book, though I will say it’s probably not something for children who are not refugees unless their parents intend to have an in-depth conversation with them about the subject.

I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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