When Stars Are Scattered

Nonfiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2020

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Introduction and Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-7

Part 2, Introduction and Chapters 8-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 3, Introduction and Chapters 15-17

Afterword and Authors’ Notes

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Waiting

As Omar grows and comes of age, gradually “Balancing Belief in Dreams, Faith, and Hard Work,” one of his greatest challenges is waiting. Waiting, one of the novel’s motifs, is a continuous conflict for Omar. He begins to feel as he matures that his life is slipping away due to all the waiting—waiting for food rations, for water, for school to start after a break, for the war in Somalia to end, for his mother to come find them. Fatuma, in a bid to keep Omar’s spirits up, even suggests that the camp is “God’s waiting room” (130), but Omar can only reflect that so many thousands of refugees waiting in one place feels like a prison.

Later, he must wait to hear back from the UN regarding his interview. Months of waiting produce no result; Omar waits so long that he must refocus his attention on school and family, and four years pass. Finally, in a moment that shows a vital step in Omar’s arc, he rejects waiting for morning to find Hassan and takes a leap of faith by traveling the bush at night to search for him. Omar’s patience from years of waiting helps him process his emotions as he works through the resettlement process.

In the Afterword, the reader learns that Omar’s and Hassan’s mother rediscovered them after 23 years and that Omar began the work of bringing her to the US in 2019; ironically, a travel ban made that goal difficult: “The current (2019) travel restrictions against people born in Somalia means that their mother can’t join them now. But this family is used to waiting, and they are hopeful for the future” (260).

The Stars

Stars represent a variety of ideas in When Stars Are Scattered. For example, they represent the light of knowledge and the courage of self-direction. Early in the story, Omar turns to a star in the night sky that helps him feel close to his parents. He yearns for their advice, love, and empathy in his difficult choice between staying with Hassan or leaving him daily for school. Omar does not hear an answer, but in the morning, he knows he must begin school. Stars have a literal ability to guide us in terms of navigation and have long symbolized help in our decision-making processes or our ability to know the future (one’s fate is “in the stars,” etc.).

Stars also symbolize love and empathy for one another and how those feelings impact choices and decisions. When Omar grows impatient for his own fate after Nimo learns she will resettle in Canada, he loses empathy for everyone, including Jeri: “I felt like I had a darkness growing inside me too. It made me feel angry and mean, and I took it out on the people I loved most” (206). The “darkness” Omar feels is shown by artwork in the same panel that includes his huddled form against a vast, dark night sky completely empty of stars. He remembers empathy, though, and soon reconnects with Jeri. In the next nighttime panel, the two stand together—”brothers” (218)—looking up at a sky filled with stars. Finally, the stars in Maryam’s poem symbolize unity between the people of Somalia; though they may be scattered as refugees, they are bound together over space and time by their shared history and stories.

Hooyo

Hassan is largely nonverbal throughout the story. He vocalizes sounds when he shows Nimo’s mother he wants to see the goats, and he communicates through expressions and gestures consistently. However, his only real word, which he uses throughout the story, is Hooyo. Readers do not learn this word’s meaning until just before Omar and Hassan receive their envelope containing the UN’s response to their resettlement application: “Hooyo means mama” (248). Though the word’s literal definition is mama, Hassan uses it to greet various people he loves, such as Fatuma, Omar, Jeri, and Susana.

When Omar explains what the word means to Susana, he wonders if Hassan still hopes to find their mother. This moment forces Omar to wonder if going to America means giving up the hope of finding her. After Omar receives the news of resettlement and prepares to leave Dadaab, he comes to understand—much as Hassan shows that he feels the spirit of their mother’s love in everyone who cares for them—that their mother’s presence has been with them for the last 14 years. He sees that there is no reason for that to change:

Many years ago we lost our mother. But maybe she is not gone. She is in the love that surrounds us and the people who care for us. Maybe she is in the very sand beneath our feet. So perhaps we’re not leaving out mother behind. Maybe she’ll always be with us. Even in America (254).

Hooyo, then, symbolizes the love and concern between Omar and Hassan and those they knew in Dadaab.