A Readers’ Theater Adaptation of Katherine Applegate’s
Home of the Brave
By Dixie Allen
Used with permission of Feiwel and Friends © 2007.
Characters:
Narrator 1 Kek
Narrator 2 Dave
Narrator 3
Narrator 1: This script comes from the novel, Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate.
Narrator 2: Kek, a young refugee from the Sudan, has left his war-torn home to come to America to live with his Aunt Nyatal and his cousin Ganwar.
Kek: When the flying boat returns to earth at last, I open my eyes and gaze out the round window. What is all that white? Where is all the world? The helping man greets me and there are many lines and questions and pieces of paper. At last I follow him outside.
Dave: We call that snow. Isn’t it beautiful? Do you like the cold?
Narrator 3: Kek really wants to say, “No, this cold is like claws on his skin!”
Narrator 2: As Kek looks around, all he sees is the dead grass that pokes through the unkind blanket of snow that sparkles with light. He closes his eyes as he tries out his new English words.
Kek: How can you live in this place called America? It burns your eyes!
Narrator 1: Dave hands Kek a fat shirt and soft things like hands.
Dave: Coat…Gloves. (and with a smile) You’ll get used to it.
Narrator 3: Kek is a tall boy like all his people and his arms stick out of the coat like lonely trees. He can’t seem to make the gloves work. He shakes his head.
Kek: This America is hard work.
Narrator 2: Dave’s laughter makes little clouds.
Narrator 1: Dave gets Kek settled in his car and they get on the road to drive over to Kek’s Aunt’s place where Kek will be staying.
Kek: (aside spoken only to the audience) Sometimes Dave speaks English, the tangled sounds they tried to teach us in the refugee camp. And sometimes he uses my words. He’s like a song always out of tune, missing notes. To help him, I try some English, but my mouth just wants to chew the words and spit them on the ground.
Narrator 2: As Dave and Kek make their way down the road, Kek gazes out the window in wonderment at the roadside and the buildings when all of a sudden, he spots a cow in a field on the side of the road.
Kek: Stop! Please stop.
Dave: What? What’s wrong?
Kek: Did you not see her? The brave cow in the snow?
Dave: Cow? Oh yeah. That used to be a big farm. Lot of land around here is getting sold off now. But that farmer’s hanging on.
Narrator 3: Kek doesn’t understand Dave’s words but he can hear that he doesn’t love cattle as he does and he feels sorry for him.
Dave: Oh, what the heck?
Kek: I have not yet learned the meaning of heck but I can see that it’s a fine and useful word, because he’s turns the car around.
Narrator 1: In Kek’s home back in Africa, cattle mean life.
Kek: They are our reason to rise with the sun, to move with the rains, to rest with the stars. They are the way we know our place in the world.
Narrator: 2 But Kek’s new place is here in Minnesota…
…without cows
…without his mother, who is still missing
…without his father and brother, who were killed when his village was attacked.
Narrator 1: Kek’s new place is here in Minnesota…
…with an Aunt who is overwhelmed by her new life
…with a cousin who lost his hand in the same attack that killed his father and brother
…with a language and people he does not understand.
Kek: Will I make my way or will I become lost? Can I be brave or will I give up? And what about that cow down the road?
Narrator 3: You will have to read Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate to find out how this touching story turns out.