A few years back, principal David Starr was talking to parents of children in Edmonds Community School, a Burnaby elementary with an inordinate number of refugee kids.
"One mom actually said we have an amazing story that needs to be told in a book," Starr recalls. "She told me her story, and she was right."
At 14, the woman and her cousin left their conflict-plagued home in Sudan and walked more than 1,000 kilometres to neighbouring Ethiopia.
The story was remarkable enough to put a bug in Starr's brain about a creating a book chronicling the many stories from refugee families who made incredible journeys to Canada. He sat on the idea for a couple of years and eventually ran it past a publisher.
"They were very, very interested in talking to me about it," he said.
And on Oct. 11, From Bombs to Books was released.
Starr describes the book as a collection of tales from people who made it to Burnaby from countries such as Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
"What they all share in common is these kids all go to our school," Starr said. "It talks a lot about the work of the teachers and counsellors that support them."
The book is for adults and teens and is available at Chapters. Proceeds go to the families whose stories are depicted in the book.
"The people whose stories they are also wanted to honour their families and friends, people who travelled these journeys with them who perhaps didn't make it," Starr said. "One thing they all agree on, they want the world to know what happened. ... We're talking about things that are going on today in many of these countries. This is contemporary history."
The book is also a chance to counter some of the bad press Edmonds has had for scoring low on the Fraser Institute's annual ranking of schools, something Starr considers remarkably unfair.
"The work our teachers do is outstanding," he said.
Roughly one-third of the kids who go to Edmonds are refugees or their parents were refugees, many coming to Canada after years spent in camps.
"I was in a fortunate position to be entrusted to these stories, but really the heroes, if you will, it's the families themselves," Starr said. "It's through the book they've had the opportunity to tell the stories. They are my heroes these people, their amazing resilience and their strength."
Starr is no stranger to writing. He was the winner in the Province newspaper's serial thriller writing contest back in 2008.
