Dream Land

What and where is home? One of a most difficult question is asked by this book. Is home where you live or your parents or grandparents ever lived? The girl named Safinar and her family had gone from Uzbekistan to Russia to find Caucasus that their grandparents came from.They had been dreaming of going back to Caucasus, but time passed and thing had changed. Facing the strange land that she had only heard from the stories, Safi wondered if it could really call home.

Many people came from China to Taiwan back in 1946 because of the war, it was sixty years ago. My grandfather was one of them; he came from the north of China. He was around seventeen back then. The people whom came to Taiwan like him were expecting to go back at that time. They thought they would have just stayed for a while. But the things didn’t turn out like that, most of them are still living in Taiwan today.

Traditionally, the place you belong is where your father belongs. If I follow this rule, then I’m from northern China. But like the story, is it really a place you would call home? I think home is a place your mind belongs, a place you feel home. In the story, the girl and her family feel that they belong to Caucasus, and started the hate and argument, I wonder if it worth. People can belong to somewhere, but I think we needed remember we’re all the citizens of the world. That’s where we really belong.

Lily Hyde. Dream Land. London: Walker Books Ltd,2008.

• Genre: Fiction
• Source: Senior Library
• Rating: 3
• Read: Whole Book

Vocabulary

• Collectivization –Joining several private farms, industries,etc. together so that they are controlled by community or by government
• Restructurization –Organizing something such as a system or a company in a new and different way