SAVING ANA

For readers of The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui, Guy Delisle's Jerusalem and Hostage, and Threads: From the Refugee Crisis by Kate Evans. SAVING ANA is a beautifully rendered story of two families separated by thousands of miles and experience, yet brought together by solidarity and conflict, loss and hope. Stunning illustrations by Lina Safar, rooted in her strong personal connection to the story, provide a deeper perspective to John's text, which is based on his experience reporting in Syria.

SAVING ANA unfolds in the early years of the Syrian civil war, as the initial promise of the Arab Spring devolves into chaos. The country's struggle is told through the story of Fatima (37) and Mustafa (35), siblings already shaped by violence and loss. Their father was killed by Hafez al-Assad's regime when they were children. Now the siblings face more catastrophic loss in the latest crackdown by Hafez's son, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Faced with impossible choices, Fatima and Mustafa pick different paths: she flees the violence, desperate to protect her teenage son Hasan; Mustafa leans into the conflict, eager for revenge.

Fatima's story is told to the world after she has a chance encounter with a Canadian radio journalist named Hank Garrett (40). A listener in Vancouver named Ana Petrova (48) hears Hank's story about Fatima. As a young child, Ana fled communist Czechoslovakia for Canada with her dissident mother. Ana's father was arrested by the Czech secret police as she and her mother fled. Ana - reeling from her mother's sudden death - hears echoes of her own family's story in Fatima's efforts to protect her son. After hearing Hank's radio documentary, she decides to pay it forward by helping Fatima and Hassan resettle in Canada.

SAVING ANA brings these two seemingly disparate stories together to show that oppression is the same whether it's in modern-day Syria or Communist-era Czechoslovakia. It explores how persecution divides people how it can destroy families, and turn siblings against each other. But it also shows how the struggle against oppression unites us all.

John Chipman is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. His latest book Death in the Family, was a national bestseller and won the 2019 Speakers Book Award. It chronicles the trauma caused by disgraced forensic child pathologist Charles Smith, who in his zeal to catch child killers ended up turning grieving parents into suspects - and in some cases, convicted murderers. He is also a radio producer and documentary worker with The Current, CBC Radio's national morning program.

Lina Safar is a Ukrainian/Syrian artist based in the US, who has illustrated over a dozen children's books and educations publications in multiple languages. Lina has collaborated with organizations including UNICEF and Mercy Corps and illustrated workbooks to help Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq recover from psychological trauma. Book illustrated by Lina have won several international and bilingual children's book awards.