The war in Syria has raged for more than eight years now, obliterating cities and homes and casting the people who lived there adrift to seek lives elsewhere. The Map of Salt and Stars, a novel by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, puts a face on the tragedy of the Syrian refugee crisis. The reader experiences it through the eyes of one of the main characters, Nour. Nour's family is Syrian, but she was born and grew up in the United States.

After Nour's father dies of cancer, her family leaves New York City, the only place Nour knows well, and returns to Syria, a country she feels both is and is not her own. The strongest connection she holds to it is through history and story. All of her life, her father told her stories, weaving them out of legends, history and his own creations until they became something tangible, a lens through which Nour could see the world.

One of Nour's ...