Describing herself as a "nobody hairdresser" in Coquitlam, Tima Kurdi, the aunt of two-year-old Alan Kurdi -- whose death on the tideline in Turkey in 2015 awakened the world to the plight of Syrian refugees -- has produced The Boy on the Beach: My Family's Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home (Simon & Schuster $32). She and her brother Abdullah, Alan's father, now promote awareness of refugees with the Kurdi Foundation. "When you saw the photograph of that little boy, my dear nephew Alan, dead on a faraway shore, you became a part of our family," she writes. "You shared our horror, our heartache, our shock, and our outrage. You wanted to save him, but you knew it was too late. In your grief, you reached out, and by doing, you grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me to you. You joined my family's chorus of grief. You helped save me from drowning."

The Boy on the Beach: My Family's Escape from Syria and Our Hope for a New Home (Simon & Schuster, 2018) $32 978-1-5011-7523-7

[BCBW 2018]