Patricia McCormick (1) (1956–)

Sold is a truly heartbreaking story, as any tale of human trafficking is. Familiar first-world objects and concepts are threaded into this grotesque, horrific life Lakshmi winds up in, and the effect is quite jarring. I've read this book three times now. The first time, I was thirteen, like Lakshmi, and I didn't fully understand what was happening, so the next year, I read it again. I put it on hold last summer due to an experience that made me want to reread it, and I feel as though I get show more much more from it as an adult. I hadn't realized that she was being drugged by Mumtaz in order to force her to sleep with men, or that a girl hanging from the rafters meant she'd committed suicide. When I was younger, I really believed that Lakshmi had a chance of legitimately leaving Happiness House and Mumtaz, if she could somehow pay down her debt. I didn't have that hope for her this time. Overall, Sold is a good book, but a hard read. show less

For my money, this was leagues better than Goblin Secrets, which beat Never Fall Down for the young adult award. Admittedly, I'm a human rights person (but I'm also totally a magic, automaton, goblin person). This is an extremely difficult story to tell and McCormick (and her real-life source, Arn Chorn-Pond) do a spectacular job. At first, I found Arn-Chorn's voice, a kind of pigden English, difficult, but it grew on me and becomes quite effective about a third of the way through. Then I show more noticed that the effect was often abrupt and powerful:

In this passage, Chorn-Pond is a refugee under Khmer Rouge control. We know that he used to sell ice cream to make a little money:

The rainy season is here now, and the path is like river of mud; and the nighttime is very cold with no blanket, only thin pajama, so we sleep with all of us very close to stay warm. Also it's the season when malaria can come, and all the time we get bit by bug. At night I think maybe to cry a little bit for my family, but I do like my aunt says, cry only in my mind. In the daytime very hot, like steam almost; and when we walk, I think maybe I go crazy. Because all I can think of only one thing: Ice cream cone.

What he went through is unimaginable, in the literal sense of the word. We cannot, alone, even imagine what a person, let alone a child, experienced under Khmer Rouge rule. So we desperately need books like this to evoke some even tangential sense of what humans are in fact capable of doing to other humans. An important, searing, beautifully written book. show less

Wow! This is SUCH a powerful book. This book is the novelistion of Arn Chorn Pond's life as a child living under the brutal Kmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Although this is a young adult novel, there is no gilding of the lily here. Events are told in the starkest light - descriptions of torture, murder, starvation, disease, fear and confusion are presented in the most authentic voice. McCormick interviewed Arn over the course of two years and has told the story in the first person, styling show more her prose in Cambodian English - a masterful stroke, lending authenticity to the narrative.

But why am I talking about style and narrative? This is an important story, full of the rawness of a child trying to survive in circumstances where merely making eye contact with someone can get you killed, where a handful of rice can be the difference between life and death, where a beautiful temple can be turned into a torture chamber and where an invitation to visit the mango grove can mean either that you won't be seen again or that you will have to help roll dead bodies into a mass grave.

This is a book which raises questions about the human condition and about what happens when madmen have access to unfettered political power. It's the story of Pol Pot, but it's also the story of Hitler, Amin, Kim Jong Il, Mugabe, Hussein, Sudan and the government of Guatemala during the second half of the 20th century. If this book doesn't make you angry, you are like the children in the camp - too frightened and hopeless to feel emotion when the child sitting beside you at meal time quietly dies of starvation.

But it's also a story of inspiration. One child managed to get out and as an adult has made a difference, having endured what no child should have endured.

Obviously Patricia McCormick has a highly developed social conscience, given not only this novel, but previous ones as well and I applaud her achievements in informing young people about stories that are important in our world. If such novels galvanise people to make a difference, or even to THINK about making a difference, all power to her! show less

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl that lives in Nepal with her mother, stepfather and brother. Their living conditions are meager and food is often scarce, but they survive. One day after Lakshmi's stepfather squanders what money they had, he announces that it is time for Lakshmi to work. He sells her into a world of darkness under the guise of working in the city as a maid.

Whoa. I wasn't fully aware of what was going to happen to Lakshmi and frankly I was surprised. McCormick researched show more and interviewed women in Nepal making this story very accurate and in turn extremely disturbing. The writing - amazing. She delivered such a deplorable topic through a poetic style that swept me up. This fast-paced book helps build awareness through the life of Lakshmi that is truly palpable. McCormick is going on my "must read another soon" list. (4.5/5)

Originally posted on: "Thoughts of Joy..." show less