We Are All We Have

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains her mother, Pakistani teen Rania Hasan struggles to navigate the aftermath in a gut-wrenching tale by Budhos (The Long Ride). Following her journalist father’s disappearance when Rania was younger, she and her pregnant mother fled Pakistan, immigrating to the U.S. Now, living in 2019 Brooklyn, her mother’s “routine check” of their asylum application goes terribly wrong; she’s detained by ICE in the middle of the night, leaving now-17-year-old Rania to care for her eight-year-old brother Kamal alone while attempting to graduate high school. But after a neighbor informs child protective services that she and Kamal are without a guardian, the siblings are taken to a shelter for unaccompanied minors. Determined to save her mother and get their lives back, Rania and Kamal, joined by a fellow shelter resident, Latinx-cued Carlos, escape and embark on a road trip to meet an estranged relative. Budhos populates this hopeful tale with a large cast of kind-hearted characters, whose boundless compassion for Rania and Kamal, and sense of helplessness in the face of an unfair and impossible government system, is palpable. Ages 12–up. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman. (Oct.)