A rating of 3 makes this seem like it On the Move: Home Is Where You Find It is not a good book/collection. However, this rating is because of the images of Quentin Blake, which I am not a fan of. However, they are perfect for the atmosphere of the writing (raw, desolate, almost hopeless) and since t there are no half points, this is a 3.5 lower 4.
The idea of migration, refugees, immigrants, all come together while we follow Michael Rosen finding out about his history and the family that was part of it. Centered around World War II and his Jewish heritage, these poems are individual stories that could be happening today. There is background on the words migration, immigration and refuge, as well as how they are interchangeable in usage, but not in reality. We follow people trying to survive, many who did not, and those who did survive, some by luck and others by migration, immigration or even being a refugee.
While ages 10 and up can read, I am not sure how much the younger readers would “get from it” and “take away from it.” There are the surface items, Jewish people being taken to camps and the racism they face. Then there is the symbolic parts and the use of cattle cars to take cattle, then people, or how the museum was destroyed in the center of the city, only to have the bones of a dinosaur exhibit trying to raise out of the snow. There is much going on and you probably cannot get it in one reading.
Overall, I liked this book, but did not love it. Sometimes there was an individual poem that spoke to me, but other times I was not sure what I was reading let alone the why it was written. It is not an easy book. The small size is deceptive. This book has more that it seems at first look. You cannot or should not rush through, you need to be comfortable, and little to know distractions around you.