We Are All Born Free
Sold
Patricia McCormick
Synopsis:
The thirteen-year-old narrator of this unforgettable book lives in a small hut in the Nepalese mountains. Although her family is poor, Lakshmi enjoys simple pleasures such as playing hopscotch with her best friend, caring for her spotty goat or having her hair brushed by her dear mother at the light of an oil lamp. But when the monsoon ruins the family’s last crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather introduces her to a glamorous stranger who offers her a job as a maid to support her family. The young girl follows her duty, being only too happy to help her loved ones and make them proud.
Little does she know that what awaits her is a life of exploitation and violent abuse in one of Calcutta’s slums. Her indebted, gambling addicted stepfather has done the unthinkable: he has sold Lakshmi into prostitution.
Unable to escape the brutal trap, the young girl shows incomparable strength of character, hearing her mother’s words echo in her mind: 'Simply to endure is to triumph.' Friendship, hope and an incredible sense of self will be necessary to get the heroine through these nightmarish times and make an important decision in order to reclaim her life.
Written in short evocative vignettes and breath-taking first-person narrative, Sold describes a violent and unimaginable world, while stressing the human strengths, such as friendship and hope, which can always overcome the worst adversities.
2006 US National Book Award finalist with Sold, Patricia McCormick, inspired by her research in India and Nepal, makes the unimaginable palpable and the characters believable. She is a reporter and freelance writer for The New York Times, Reader's Digest, Parents and Mademoiselle. Her style of writing makes the reader unable to ever put this book down.
Sold is endorsed by Amnesty International UK as a important contribution to the understanding of human rights and the values that underpin them.
'An unforgettable account of sexual slavery as it exists now.' Booklist
'Hard-hitting, … poignant. The author beautifully balances the harshness of brothel life with the poignant relationships amongst its residents.'Publisher’s weekly
| ISBN | 9781406313956 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Walker Books |
| Date | 02 Jun 2008 |
| Format | 198 x 129mm, pp 288 |
| Price | £5.99 |
Review
'A well-researched, unflinching and shocking, but never sensational, expose of a form of modern child slavery'
- Books for Keeps
‘Sold’ is the story of a young girl, Lakshmi, who has grown up in the mountains of Nepal. When her stepfather gambles away the small amount of money the family has he sends her off to India to become a maid in the city.
She is excited at the thought and dreams of earning money and making her family proud. However, when she gets there she finds out the truth; she has been sold and now is being forced to work in a brothel by the person who bought her. She meets an American who eventually comes to the rescue of the girls being kept against their will.
Patricia McCormick addresses the horrendous issue of sexual slavery in a sensitive way that makes the book (although very sad) readable and enjoyable. I would recommend the book to others; it taught me a lot and gave me an insight into some of the appalling things that some girls have to go through in order to earn money.
By Megan Cowley (15)
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