The Year the Maps Changed

Wolf Hollow meets The Thing About Jellyfish in Danielle Binks’s debut middle grade novel set in 1999, where a twelve-year-old girl grapples with the meaning of home and family amidst a refugee crisis that has divided her town.



If you asked Fred to draw a map of her family, it would be a bit confusing. Her birth father was never in the picture, her mom died years ago, and her stepfather, Luca, is now expecting a baby with his new girlfriend. According to Fred’s teacher, maps don’t always give the full picture of our history, but more and more it feels like Fred’s family is redrawing the line of their story . . . and Fred is left feeling off the map.



Soon after learning about the baby, Fred hears that the town will be taking in hundreds of refugees seeking safety from war-torn Kosovo. Some people in town, like Luca, think it’s great and want to help. Others, however, feel differently, causing friction within the community. Fred, who has been trying to navigate her own feelings of displacement, ends up befriending a few refugees. But what starts as a few friendly words in Albanian will soon change their lives forever, not to mention completely redraw Fred’s personal map of friends, family, home, and community.