If I Can Stay

If I Can Stay

Kajsa Gordan

Original Title
Om jag får stanna
Published
Rabén & Sjögren, 2017
Genre
Fiction 9-12
Pages
140
Rights Sold
Korean
Albanian
Tags
, , ,

If I Can Stay

Kajsa Gordan

Ilona is 13 years old. She goes to school, plays football and hangs out with her best friend, like any other child her age. But unlike her schoolmates, she lives with her family in a monastery, hiding in the wait for a deportation order to be changed to a decision of asylum. A threatening cloud hangs over their heads, at the same time as they try to create an every day life for themselves in the new country.
What is it like to huddle together in a small room with the curtains drawn year after year?
And what is it like to be the best friend, the one who has an obvious right to stay here and to plan for the future? Should you feel guilty that you are well off?

Despite the serious topic, it was important for the author that the book shouldn’t be too heavy, but entertaining, even funny at times, mixed with the serious and the very sad.
Kajsa Gordan’s background as a teacher has been very useful and she has also done thorough research, meeting and talking with children living this way.

Books by Kajsa Gordan

000
Press voices
Two prisons are depicted, one of them self-imposed and in it’s own way incomprehensible and the other one forced and even more incomprehensible.(…) Kajsa Gordon shows that good pedagogy can be great art.”
–Dagens nyheter

“The book is interesting because it concerns current events.”
– Kamratposten

“I hope this book, and books like it; become a part of all school libraries. /…/ A book worth reading for tweenies and a good basis for a discussion about what’s happening in Sweden and the rest of the world today. “
– Sofies bokblogg.

“It’s a beautiful and relatable story that depicts both girls’ feelings in a credible way. The book is appropriate for both reading on your own as well as reading aloud in a group, from 9 years and upward.”
– Bokluslund.

”If I can stay is a book that gives its readers a new perspective.”
– Prickiga Paula.

”It’s an easy read that does not only depict the hardship of having to flee and find yourself again, but also friendship and solidarity as well as illustrating that no man is an island.”
– Bokkoll.

“An insightful and touching portrayal of a reality we often choose to ignore.”
– Ingalill Mosander, Aftonbladet.

“A gripping and honest book about the two twelve year old best friends, Stella who has an utterly safe environment, and Ilona, who waits for a decision of asylum.”
– Vi Läser.