Why No Goodbye?

By Pamela L. Laskin

•Co-winner of the 2018 Leapfrog Fiction Contest. •Book should be pitched to middle schools and high schools throughout the country. Fortify Rights would help to ensure the book has a space in the regional area where the novel is set. Children need to learn about a world they know nothing about.
•It should be pitched to libraries, which the author has an excellent record doing. Previous YA novel in verse, Ronit and Jamil, has found its way into many libraries in America, and in other parts of the world.
• Since the publication of Ronit and Jamil, author’s focus as a writer has been on literature which reflects the political and social climate of our times, books which reflect our current culture, in hopes that they can impact and possibly change a reader’s vision.
• Why No Gooodbye? started as a response to the horrific news reports about the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. At the time, two years ago, the author’s daughter was working on search and rescue missions in the Adaman Sea, for people who were trying to escape to Indonesia and Malaysia. As with those traveling to the US from Central and South America today, no one embarks on such a treacherous journey to cross borders unless their lives are threatened and living conditions are untenable.
• The author researched the politics of the region and started correspondence with Fortify Rights, a human rights organization in that area. The proceeds of the sale of the sale of one of her previous books went to Fortify Rights, and she hopes to do the same again.
•An interesting side story: The cover photograph is of a Rohingya boy who has fled from Myanmar and is safely over the border, currently in a refugee camp, waiting for his mother to join him—exactly the opposite of the boy in this book (used with permission and model release). The photographer is in contact with him and will see that he receives copies of the book.
•Current relevance: The Rohingya crisis is ongoing, and is one of many crises and mass migrations of people currently; and it will only become worse as climate change accelerates loss of resources (e.g., water) and conflict.
• This book is unique in its combination of a teen boy’s POV, it being an epistolary novel told through a series of letters, a novel in verse, and a mother/son story—that is an unusual focus.• Author’s previous novel in verse was very successful, received many reviews including in trade journal (Booklist, PW, SLJ, Kirkus, and Horn Book) and elsewhere, and was well-publicized. That book also received a blurb from Jacqueline Woodson.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leapfrog Press
• Release date: Nov 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781948585071

Pamela L. Laskin

Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English department at City College of New York and directs the Poetry Outreach Center. A published poet and author, she has written several poetry chapbooks and children’s books, including Homer the Little Stray Cat, and short YA stories for both Sassy and Young Miss magazines. She is currently a Colin Powell fellow and a SEED grant recipient for Poetry Outreach, and she has received three RF CUNY grants for completion of creative work. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Book preview

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Also by the author

Monster Maria / Marisol y El Huracán María

Ronit & Jamil

Homer the Little Stray Cat

New Beginnings

The Bonsai Curator

Plagiarist

Visitation Rites

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Leapfrog Press

Fredonia, New York

Why No Goodbye? © 2019 by Pamela Laskin

All rights reserved under International and

Pan-American Copyright Conventions

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a data base or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in 2019 in the United States by

Leapfrog Press LLC

PO Box 505

Fredonia, NY 14063

www.leapfrogpress.com

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed in the United States by

Consortium Book Sales and Distribution

St. Paul, Minnesota 55114

www.cbsd.com

Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to

Fortify Rights

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Laskin, Pamela L., author. 

Title: Why no goodbye : why no bhine / Pamela Laskin. 

Description: First edition. | Fredonia, NY : Leapfrog Press LLC ; St. Paul,    Minnesota : Distributed in the United States by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, 2019. | Summary: When his mother escapes Myanmar with his siblings during the Rohingya crisis, thirteen-year-old Jubair expresses anger over the abandonment and struggles to find forgiveness, in a series of letters.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019021546 | ISBN 9781948585064 (pbk. : alk. paper) 

Subjects: LCSH: Rohingya (Burmese people)--Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Novels in verse. | Rohingya (Burmese people)--Fiction. | Abandoned chilldren--Fiction. | Separation (Psychology)--Fiction. | Refugees--Fiction. | Letters--Fiction. | Burma--Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.5.L37 Wh 2019 | DDC [Fic]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019021546

To the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar

Acknowledgements

The cover photo is of Rafiqul, a boy from Myanmar. He has been living with his father in a refugee camp in Bangladesh since September 2017, and is waiting for his mother to join them. The photo was taken by the riverside in Shaporir Dip, Bangladesh, a popular place for refugees to cross from neighboring Myanmar. Rafiqul is currently studying in high school grade 8, and would like to continue his education in the future.

Photograph © 2018 Lewis Inman, lewisinman.com.

Special thanks to Matthew and Amy Smith, Fortify Rights.

Thank you RF CUNY, Grant cycle 49, for financial support of the book.

And to my agent, Myrsini Stephanides, Carol Mann Agency, and finally to Samantha Reiser, who consistently fights for human rights all over the world!

Escape to Malaysia

New York Times, June 6th, 2015

How could you leave

your first born,

how could you tell him

his father is dead,

when you are crossing the sea

to Malaysia

with the babies

where he might