Boy Overboard Study Guide

Gleitzman was born in Lincolnshire, England, but moved to Australia at the age of 16 where he worked as a paperboy, a fashion designer assistant, and shelf-stacker before earning a degree in Writing from Canberra College. Following his graduation, he began his career as a screenwriter, contributing to the success of  the award-winning Norman Gunston Show, among others. After a decade in television, Gleitzman pivoted to writing screenplays for movies and plays before venturing into the world of children’s literature. His debut novel, The Other Facts of Life (1987), was originally written as a screenplay, and many of his subsequent books, like Two Weeks with the Queen, Blabber Mouth, and Misery Guts, have since been adapted for the stage. One of his most popular books, Bumface (1988), is an international bestseller and continues to be one of Australia’s favorite children’s books, winning numerous awards. As a writer, he is known for his offbeat, humorous approach to serious subjects, such as his treatment of the Afghanistan refugee crisis in Boy Overboard (2002) and the AIDS crisis in Two Weeks with the Queen (1998). Morris published his most recent book, Always, in 2021, a sequel to his multi-part series, One, Now, Then, and After. Gleitzman’s was selected as the 2018-2019 Australian Children’s Laureate, and he has authored more than 40 children’s books to date. Beyond his literary pursuits, he is a frequent columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age and lives with his long-time partner, Mary-Anne Fahey, with whom he shares two stepchildren.

While Boy Overboard is a work of fiction, its underlying narrative is loosely based on real historical events. The book aims to depict the experiences of Afghan refugees fleeing their home due to persecution, a decades-long phenomena that began in the 1970s and intensified during Afghanistan’s civil wars of the 1990s. Following the U.S.’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, these events received widespread media attention, with news and media outlets providing constant coverage and commentary on fleeing refugees. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Islamophobia and xenophobia often dominated such commentaries, with many of them falsely accusing the innocent refugees of having communist or terrorist leanings. Within this context, the plot and themes of Boy Overboard can be read as an attempt to challenge and reshape many of the false prevailing narratives about refugees. Like many of the real families fleeing Afghanistan at the turn of the century, Jamal and his family are victims of persecution––likely at the hands of the unnamed Taliban––who simply wish to live a free, happy life.

Boy Overboard belongs to a genre of children’s novels aimed at depicting the ordeals faced by children in the real world. Here, as in other books, he uses a unique blend of humor and relatability to portray real problems in a way that children can easily process and be inspired by. The themes of family, hope and resilience feature prominently in Boy Overboard, and are present in several of Gleitzman’s other works. One such work is Two Weeks with the Queen, a novel which follows a young boy named Colin whose brother has been diagnosed with cancer. As Colin grapples with this information, he befriends and older gay man whose partner has AIDS, and the two of them help each other overcome their challenges. Another similar novel by Gleitzman is Once, the first book in a four-part series which follows a young Jewish boy named Felix in World War II. Like Boy Overboard, this book is a fictionalized account of an experience faced by many real young people in World War II, and one which highlights the importance of resilience and hope. Beyond Gleitzman’s own works, other books like Boy Overboard would be The Breadwinner by Debora Ellis, a novel which explores the difficulties faced by a young girl living under the Taliban; and Refugee by Alan Gratz, a novel which follows three different young protagonists and their experiences as refugees in Nazi Germany, 1990s Cuba, and modern-day Syria. Together, these works highlight the incredible resilience that young people can have when faced by real world problems, offering inspiration to young readers facing their own difficulties in life.