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West Lebanon Library

Sold by Patricia McCormick

The image of people talking on their cell phones nearly undid me. Up until that point, I could believe that the story took place in a more unenlightened time. A time far in the past. That the horror of what was happening to Lakshmi could not happen today. But it does. It happens every day to an average of 12,000 girls each year in Nepal alone. And more than half a million children worldwide. This book, a National Book Award Finalist, was written in their honor. This book made me ANGRY. It is not an easy read especially for the tender hearted. But it is a great book.

Imagine, if you can, living in dire poverty in a village in Nepal. Imagine weather so unforgiving that all your family's crops die. Imagine having a step-father who gambles away what little there is and will not pay the landlord. Imagine the comfort of a loving mother and friends; the easy companionship of a pet goat and the satisfaction of going to school and doing well enough to be the number one student in class. Imagine that one day you are sold to a woman unknown to you so you can be sent into the city to work as a maid. Imagine that it is a lie.

Leaving everything behind her, Lakshmi spends many days traveling with "Auntie" Bimla and then with a man she is told to call Uncle Husband. They walk first, then ride in trucks and trains, eventually crossing the border into India. Although she misses her old life, Lakshmi begins her journey feeling proud that she will be able to help her family by working and sending home money. But when she ends up in a dark and dirty house in a city where few people speak her language she begins to understand that she will not be working as a maid. She has, in fact, been sold to a brothel and is expected to become a prostitute. This is not legal in India, but there is much corruption in the city and police are bribed to look the other way. If a girl runs away, she is beaten and has her head shaved so that everyone will know she is shamed and will not help her.

Lakshmi does not accept her fate without a fierce struggle. When she refuses to do as she is told, she is beaten and starved. Only when the brothel owner, a wretched woman named Mumtaz, drugs her does Lashmi succumb. Mumtaz tells her that when Lakshmi has worked off her debt she will be free to go back to her family. So Lakshmi saves every spare rupee she has and calculates the days until she will be able to leave and return to her beloved mountain home.

When Lakshmi realizes that Mumtaz has it worked out so that she will not be able to leave for 5 or more years, Lakshmi gradually adjusts to her life of slavery. She cautiously begins making friends with a few other girls and a young boy who helps her learn to read an American story book. The girls are all terrified of what will happen to them if they try to leave and they warn Lakshmi against going with the Americans. The girls are told that the Americans will treat them shamefully. When an American does come to the brothel, he gives Lakshmi his business card and tells her about a shelter in the city for girls like her. But Lakshmi, who has been told many lies, does not believe him. Finally, when her friends are sent away penniless from the brothel because they are sick, Lakshmi reaches out to the American again. But when they come to the brothel to liberate her, she is terrified. Is there any way out of this nightmarish life for a 14 year old girl sold into slavery?

The Trap by John Smelcer

Albert Least-Weasel is out collecting animals from his trap line in winter. He gets caught in one of his traps and is unable to free himself. His snowmobile and equipment are out of reach. He has a pocket knife and warm clothes. The temperature is dropping way below zero. Will he be able to survive long enough for his grandson to come to his rescue?

Johnny Least-Weasel is worried about his elderly grandfather. Most of the old men in the village have given up their trap lines. But Albert Least-Weasel is the toughest man Johnny knows. When his grandmother asks him to go find her husband, Johnny seeks his uncle's advice. Johnny's uncle convinces him to wait a day or so beforetaking off in search of the old man. But the temperature is around thirty below zero and dropping. Johnny has to heat up the crankcase oil for his snowmobile to even start it. Johnny can wait no longer.

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

Jane, only 15, full
Of talent and promise
Swims into the mouth
Of a shark.

Jane, only 15, survives
Barely and full of anger
Loses an arm
And her dreams.

Jane, doesn't want her mother
Doesn't want her friends
Doesn't want
her fake arm.

Jane. Her body survives.
There is even pain
where her missing arm once was-
phantom limb.

Jane, only 15, loses
so much, so young
What will Jane do to lose
The name Shark Girl?

Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught

Jamie is FAT (emphasis hers). She is not ashamed of her size. She sees it as only one aspect of herself like her booming voice, sense of humor and smarts. In the hopes of winning a scholarship to college, she starts writing a column for her school newspaper: Fat Girl Manifesto. She wants to educate people about what it's really like to be fat - her thoughts, her fears, the things that make her very, very angry.

Jamie has a boyfriend, Burke, who plays football for their high school. Together with NoNo and Freddie, they form a quartet of friends devoted to one another. When Burke decides to have bariatric surgery (also know as gastric bypass surgery), Jamie struggles to support him. 1 in 20 people who have the surgery die from it. Knowing that Burke would rather face death than be fat, Jamie fears he will abandon her one way or another. Into this mix comes Heath, editor of the school paper. As he and Jamie work together sparks begin to fly. Jamie knew her senior year would be complicated, but she never would have predicted this.

Hush by Donna Jo Napoli

For Melkorka, oldest daughter of an Irish king, a happy trip to Dublin turns into a nightmare when her brother is maimed by a Viking. Vowing revenge, Melkorka's father sends her and her sister Brigid away in disguise to a place of safety while he plans an attack on the Viking's ship. In ancient Ireland, however, danger is everywhere and soon the girls are captured and taken away from their homeland. Brigid, the daring one, escapes but soon Melkorka discovers that she is headed for a slave market.

Dirty, hungry, terrified, Melkorka hangs onto the only thread of power that she has: she vows not to speak. Her silence intrigues her captors and masters alike. But how can a girl who has known only care and respect in her 15 years learn to cope with being a preall, or slave? Slaves lives are cheap and they are beaten and killed for simple offenses. Will pride be her undoing or will Melkorka be able to carve out some kind of place in the world even as a slave? Or will she find a way to get back to Ireland?

Lucy the Giant by Sherri L. Smith

Lucy, who lives in Sitka, Alaska, is a 15 year old girl who, at six feet tall (or taller - she stopped measuring), towers over her classmates. She so obviously doesn't fit in that she's stopped even trying. Her mother abandoned her years ago, and she is stuck alone with her alcoholic father, dragging him from bars at night. Distraught over the death of a stray dog she just started caring for, she goes for coffee at the small local airport and gets mistaken for someone going on a "work tour". Impulsively, Lucy gets aboard the chartered plane for Kodiak where she keeps pretending she is an adult and eventually finds work on a crabbing boat. Lucy thrives as she gets accustomed to the hard work and the eccentric ways of the crew. But she fears she will be found out for who she really is and sent home. What will she do if she has to go back to a life that held so little happiness for her?